Venom is the Cure
by Nox Descious
Summary: Fate granted Spider-Man a far less horrifying tragedy when Gwen's fall off the George Washington Bridge placed her in a coma instead of killing her. Five years later, Peter is dealt another twist of fate when the symbiote chooses the comatose Gwen instead of Eddy Brock to be its next host. How will Peter survive when his nemesis and the love of his life are the same person?
1. Chapter 1

**Welcome True Believers, Ladies, Gentlemen, and Lovers of Fanfiction!**

 **I've always wanted to try my luck at a Spider-Man fanfiction, and this idea has been in my head for almost a year, but due to focusing my attention on my two Yugioh fanfictions, combined with a lack of inspiration, this story never got off the ground.**

 **Then the Venom Movie came out in Theatres and I LOVED IT! So now with my inspiration returned to its peak, this fanfiction is now born!**

 **As a quick point of reference, this story is mainly based on the PRIME EARTH 616 Timeline** **although I will be drawing a lot of influence from the 90s Cartoon, the Spectacular Cartoon, and the recent PS4 Game. This is not a complete retelling though, as you shall soon discover since this story begins right at the point where Spidey discards the symbiote.**

 **DISCLAIMER** : **I don't own Spider-Man. It belongs to Stan Lee and Marvel Comics, although the fantasy of working for Marvel Comics and getting to create my own additions for the Spider-Man franchise would be a true blessing.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 1: The Awakening

Ten Minutes until Midnight in Manhattan, New York, the city that never sleeps. Anyone who spent a long enough time in this metropolis learned the true meaning of that moniker sooner or later, especially if a certain someone was an up and coming hero looking to make a difference in the city with one of the highest crime rates in the country. It was so shocking how often criminals and supervillains destroyed the peace of this city, it was sometimes a wonder why anyone would willingly want to live here, but if an outsider asked a local New Yorker why they chose to stay despite the constant threat of danger, they would immediately answer,

"Because we have faith in our heroes".

It was like Yin and Yang, one factor unable to exist without the other. For every set of villains who caused destruction for their own selfish goals, a hero would rise up in turn to stop them and restore peace, and the citizens of New York would be hard pressed to find a more ideal hard working hero than the born and raised resident of Queens, Peter Parker. Out of the costume, everyone knew him as the socially awkward science nerd who somehow managed to impress and succeed despite bumbling his way through life, showing up late to important events and randomly disappearing on other occasions. That was only one side of Peter though. When a criminal or supervillain was on the loose, the public would get a taste of what Peter Parker was truly capable of, as he put on his mask and tights and came to the rescue as everyone's favorite wall crawling, web slinging, crime fighting arachnid, The Friendly Neighborhood, Amazing Spider-Man.

Almost ten years to the exact date he put on the costume, both sides of Spidey's double life were still just as chaotic as they were when his career as a hero began. Sure, he managed to soldier onward regardless of the obstacles, and as a result had several accomplishments under his belt, graduating valedictorian from Midtown High, and then graduating with honors from Empire State University, using his genius level intellect to pursue a science major. As of right now, he was studying post-graduate work by serving as the lab assistant of the gifted biochemist, Doctor Curt Connors, while simultaneously trying to hold down his job as a photographer for the Daily Bugle, but often times he had to take one step forward and ten steps backwards whenever the next lunatic with an evil plan forced Peter to drop everything he was doing and put on the costume to put the evil idiots of the day in their place.

And this was in addition to facing the lack of gratitude and constant criticism he faced, courtesy of his own boss at the Daily Bugle, one foul tempered, cigarette smoking, ugly mustache sporting J Jonah Jameson, who looked for any excuse to bad mouth the wall crawler and dedicated every second of his day to exposing Spider-Man as he public menace his paranoid mind believed him to be. Old JJ was the literal definition of fake news with everything he printed about Spider-Man, and to Peter's disgust, some people actually listened to the old nut case.

It was a miracle he hadn't cracked under pressure, and yet Peter pushed forward, wearing his mask as a badge of pride and taking on his adversaries in stride, mocking them with a clever joke each time he fought them and enjoying the look on their faces as he cocooned them in webs and left them to be handcuffed and hauled off to prison by the police.

All in a days work, and still back home in time for Dinner with his Aunt May.

However, something unexpected had recently caused this pattern to break apart. For the past several months, Spider-Man had been taking a different approach to dealing with the criminals plaguing the city, an approach where the concerned civilians may consider changing his nickname from "Friendly Neighborhood" to "Scary Dark Alley".

Sure, Spider-Man had his fair share of critics and haters, but nobody was actually afraid of him, until now. Recently Spider-Man had gone through several changes, both in his looks and his attitude, and the onlookers of Spider-Man's new crime fighting methods wondered what the hell happened to the red and blue wearing boy scout, comparing the new web slinger to someone like the Punisher over a more idealized hero like Captain America. Some of these concerned citizens wondered that if the new Spider-Man was taking a darker approach to fighting criminals, would they be next? Jameson was having a field day with it, using the black suit and brutality as solid evidence that Spidey finally went off the deep end.

The truth was more complicated. Spider-Man didn't start behaving this way by choice, but then again; If they did find out the truth, the populace of New York and the entire planet would panic once they discover a second scarier truth.

Aliens are real.

Spidey was aware that other groups of heroes across the world, such as The Avengers and The Fantastic Four, had dealt with aliens in the past, but for the most part, they managed to make sure their various alien encounters were kept under wraps as isolated incidents so the public wouldn't panic and the knowledge of alien existence wouldn't become too widespread.

There may be monsters beyond the stars far more capable of causing widespread catastrophe and possibly the end of the world, but Peter was one hundred percent sure that not a single hero across the entire multiverse had ever encountered an alien creature like this one.

Of course, the first alien destined to encounter Peter Parker was nothing like the scores upon scores of fictional alien races that Peter was familiar with, courtesy of the many Science Fiction Movies he watched in his childhood and teenage years. In fact, after discovering what this alien was capable of, he would have preferred the bald, bug-eyed, "take me to your leader" aliens. Hell, he would have preferred the giant parasitic reptilian aliens that laid eggs inside human bodies until their babies explode out of their chests.

Anything would have been better than the voice inside his head right now, which was slowly but surely assuming a stronger control over his body and mind.

What was so wrong about this particular alien? At first, when Peter discovered the alien, he didn't think too much of it. He wasn't even aware the symbiote was alive for the first few times he tapped into its power. He just thought it was a special type of body suit capable of increasing his powers.

It was only when Peter later discovered that this supposed "black costume" was actually alive did the problems start. After taking it to his mentor and friend, Doctor Curt Connors, he found that it was not only alive, but it was an organism known as a symbiote, which was using his body for nutrients and desired to permanently bond with him. It explained why he was constantly exhausted all the time when he woke up each morning. Unlike Peter, the symbiote didn't need to sleep the same way humans do, so while Peter was asleep, the symbiote would assume direct control and continue Peter's patrols as Spider-Man without his knowledge.

To make matters worse, the symbiote was incorporating far more violent means of dealing with the criminals it fought while it was hijacking Peter's sleeping body, fighting them in ways Peter would never even consider. Criminals and supervillains who encounter the black suited arachnid would often walk away with broken bones, bloodied and bruised faces, and soiled trousers as the symbiote took immense levels of pleasure in scaring the living daylights out of them.

As the months passed, this aggressive behavior began to manifest even when Peter was awake, which he later discovered was a result of their bonding becoming stronger. Jekyll and Hyde were becoming the same person, and as Peter Parker, he would find himself lashing out at his friends and colleagues whenever they said something he didn't like. As Spider-Man it was even worse. Peter was beginning to show signs of the violence the symbiote incorporated during the joyrides it took Peter's body on when he was asleep, but he didn't understand the full magnitude of it until an encounter with one Herman Schultz, better known as the Shocker.

Spidey never took the Shocker seriously. He was right up there with guys like The Rhino, The Spot, and Lady Silt Man as one of the biggest jokes in the criminal underworld, someone who thought he was a bigshot and thought he could take down the wall crawler, but in the end, behind that yellow quilted couch costume and the energy gauntlets, Shocker was just another idiot who should have just quit before embarrassing himself.

Only this time, the symbiote took offense to Shocker's actions when during the fight with the Quilted Criminal, one of the Shocker's energy blasts came dangerously close to striking a woman and her child. Now Shocker wasn't planning on deliberately putting civilians in harm's way. The mother and little girl just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was still more than enough to piss Spider-Man off. Normally he would just be angry, but with the symbiote inside him, that anger evolved into pure psychotic fury, and he attacked Shocker like a wild animal.

It was only after the broken crook started begging for his life did Spider-Man finally stop beating the Shocker senseless. Peter could barely understand what he was saying since he struck Schultz's face so many times his lips were swollen, his mouth was bleeding, and several teeth were knocked out. However, he didn't need to hear any words to notice Shocker was genuinely reduced to tears, crying and pleading for mercy. It was enough to cause Peter to regain control and hesitate, and he was eternally grateful that he did. If he hadn't, he knew the symbiote would have continued to torture the Shocker and eventually kill him.

 _"P-P-P-Please... Spider-Man just let me go! I give up! I'll turn myself in! It was an accident! I didn't even see the kid, just please let me go!"_

And then after Shocker took advantage of Peter's hesitation to get up and make a run for it.

 _"SHOCKER! GET BACK HERE SHOCKER! I'LL CHASE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH! SHOCKER!"_

Horrified by what he was saying, Peter stopped dead in his tracks and the shocker got away. After coming to terms with the unspeakable thing he almost did, he came to one single conclusion.

He had to get rid of this monster, and FAST!

It was when he tried to remove it the first time that the symbiote finally made its presence known. It wasn't just alive, it possessed intelligence greater than any human. It could speak, but not in the way humans talk to each other. The webslinger soon knew how schizophrenic people must feel, since the symbiote was now a voice inside Peter's head. The voice was indescribable. It was nothing like any human voice he ever heard before. It was a strange combination of a booming male voice, an alluring seductive female voice, and a rasping demonic voice speaking at the same time, neither of those voices sounding remotely human.

Through talking with the symbiote Peter discovered just how downright obsessed with him the symbiote truly was, how it constantly talked about how happy it was to be bonded with him and describing the bonding process in the creepiest of details, which only scared Peter even more.

This creature was slowly turning Peter into something he wasn't, the opposite of the hero he wanted to be.

Peter was many things, and there were times when he truly hated the criminals he fought; a certain Goblin came to mind, but Peter wasn't a killer.

There was no reasoning with the symbiote. During the few times they actually did talk to each other symbiote was under the impression that it did nothing wrong, that it was a good thing they were to bond into one person, and it silenced all of Peter's protests by telling him resistance was futile.

As he sat on the gargoyle decorated balcony of the Our Lady of the Saints Church, he contemplated everything he had done, everything the symbiote would continue to make him do if he didn't find a way to get him off right now. As he clutched one of the gargoyles and felt the pouring rain trickle down his face, Peter now remembered what it was like to feel completely helpless.

"Uncle Ben... if you're watching me, I could really use your help right now." Peter cried under his breath.

 _"Peter Parker... Spider-Man..."_ The sounds of the symbiote creeped back into his brain like a viper crawling out of the depths of hell. _"Peter, why are you sad? Why ask for the help of a dead man, when you can ask for my help? Just tell me what's wrong and I can make the pain go away."_

"You're inside my head, so I thought you already knew the answer to that!" Peter snapped.

 _"Oh, Peter, but your thoughts make no sense."_ replied the symbiote in a pouting tone of voice. _"Surely you would never resort to such an unthinkable deed over a small misunderstanding. My kind may be all powerful and capable of granting our hosts anything they desire, but nobody is perfect. Besides, I was longing to hear your voice again, my dear host. You've been awfully quiet for the past several hours. Surely you can't silence the concerns of your other half?"_

"Other half? OTHER HALF?!" Peter shouted at the alien in his head. "You've been taking my body for joyrides and forcing me to kill! You never even bothered to talk to me until I realized what you really were! If you really didn't mean any harm, then why did you hide your true intentions?"

 _"The bonding process usually doesn't take this long."_ said the alien. _"We would have been one long before now. I just needed time to discover why, and for the time being, I could help you succeed in your life's purpose, fighting the vile criminals of this city. As much as I relish watching you sleep, boredom is cancerous, so I decided to continue fulfilling the purpose we now share, defending your territory from the scum that plagues it. You should be happy knowing you could literally do your job in your sleep. It was just another one of my many gifts to you while we discovered why your body wouldn't allow us to bond."_

"Well maybe it's because my body had a gut feeling you were up to no good ." Peter replied sarcastically. "And anybody with half a brain between their ears would see what kind of THING you really are. You're not a friend, and you're not helping me! You're only helping yourself! I'll tell you what you are! You're a God Damn Parasite!"

 _" **PARASITE?!** DON'T YOU DARE SAY THAT WORD!" _The symbiote roared in Peter's mind, its demonic voice loud enough to hurt his ears _. "YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW!"_

"No! I don't think I will!" Peter argued defiantly. "Because that's exactly what you're doing! You're feeding off me, you're taking control of my body, and you want to strip me of my free will so you can go around killing people! How is that not what a parasite is?!"

 _"Strip you of your free will? No! Never! You don't understand, Peter Parker. You don't know what you truly want, and for the record you are not fulfilling your purpose properly! These criminals are a disease, and while you treat the symptoms you aren't using a strong enough medicine! How many times have you fought each member of your little rogues gallery? Multiple times each! Aren't you tired of them rearing their ugly heads! Don't you want them defeated for good so they can never threaten this city again? All I did was encourage your body to do a better job at solving this problem. All I have done is give, give, give to my perfect host! The criminals you fight, the ones we wish to crush under our feet. They are the parasites infesting our city! That's why we must kill them, so they may never tarnish our territory ever again!"_

"This isn't your city, and I'm not some wild animal defending my territory! That is not how this works!" Peter argued again.

 _"Not listening, Peter Parker, Not listening. It is OUR city! Spider-Man has failed so many times to protect his city and protect those close to him because the identity of Spider-Man is incomplete! To evolve into the true Spider-Man, the Spider-Man this planet needs, Peter Parker and Symbiote need to be together, to become one at last! Why do you fight it? It's a wonderful thing to look forward to. It's what every symbiote dreams of, to finally complete their identity by uniting with their perfect host and truly becoming the other half. It's our destiny, Peter Parker! I only want_ _what's best for you! You struggled all your life to be Peter Parker and Spider-Man, but when we become one, there shall be no need for a double identity. All your suffering will end when the new version of ourselves is born, and everything shall fall into place!"_

"Well let me see, Hmmmmmmm." Peter thought to himself, answering the symbiote with more sarcasm. "Do I retain my ability to choose how I want to live, or do I allow who I am right now to effectively die and trust that this hybrid of ourselves, basically a completely different person, will do everything better than what I'm doing now and not do anything immoral or cross any lines? Decisions Decisions."

"Oh wait, that's right! You already crossed several lines when you almost made me kill someone, so how can I trust you now? I never asked to be your host, and you don't understand the definition of right and wrong. You need to leave until you figure that part out. I was doing just fine being Spider-Man before you showed up anyway!"

" _Oh really? Then why is The Goblin still alive? Why didn't you avenge your Gwen?"_

The symbiote's question cut deep into Peter's heart, and his throat turned dry as a desert.

"What did you say?"

 _"Your greatest failure is just a few miles across the city, sleeping in her hospital bed just as she has been for the past five years. Why don't we ask her why Norman Osborn still wanders free, getting away with everything he has done? Why don't we ask her why you didn't avenge her?"_

Peter wanted to answer to that, but he couldn't find his voice.

 _"When the Goblin hurt your Gwen, you vowed to destroy him for it. You didn't need a symbiote to channel such rage, you desired to kill him of your own volition, but you didn't. When you found out the Goblin's body vanished, and he didn't actually die from being impaled on his glider, you spent weeks searching the city for him. Then you just accepted that he fled the country. You didn't try hard enough to exact your vengeance. Why did you stop? Why did you not avenge your human mate? Do you not care for her, or did you simply treat her the way you are treating me now? When you decide you don't want someone anymore, you just separate from them and throw them away. Is that it?_

 _"Did you throw your Gwen away?"_

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Peter screamed. "You don't know anything about what I've had to go through after Norman put Gwen in that coma!"

 _"On the contrary, we know everything about you. We are deep inside you, remember, and soon we shall be much more than that. Just relax. Trust me! Stop resisting!"_

Spider-Man felt his resolve slip after the symbiote touched a raw nerve bringing Gwen up, but the symbiote was dead wrong. He didn't throw Gwen away. Even though she was still in that hospital, unable to actually be with him, his love for her was stronger than every. If he really did want to throw Gwen away, he wouldn't come to visit her twice a week for the past five years in the hospital. He wouldn't have played her favorite music, brought her flowers, or talked to her about his day as if she could hear him. He wouldn't break down crying on the sheets of her hospital bed when the conversation dragged on and the memory of his greatest failure as a hero resurfaced.

A toxic venomous memory he was reliving once again.

()

"You're right. I did want to kill him when I saw what he did to Gwen." Spidey confessed. "But I wasn't going to leave the city I needed to protect to spend God knows how long looking for Norman just to satisfy a petty desire for revenge. If I leave the city to look for the Goblin, then who's going to protect it when the next madman with a pumpkin bomb shows up? I can't use my powers selfishly, and I can't use my powers irresponsibly! Leaving the city to look for the Goblin would mean looking the other way while other people's loved ones are put in danger."

"And I'm never looking the other way ever again." Peter vowed, the face of his uncle ben appearing in his mind as if to comfort him.

 _"Your turmoil is understandable, Peter, such a tough decision indeed, but there is no need to despair over such a difficult choice. Your symbiote is here to make it all better. Just let us finish bonding together, and when we become one we will find the Goblin and kill him together. We shall tear the skin from his body, crush his bones and devour his delicious brain, but not before making him beg and squeal for mercy like the filthy pig he is! How could that not be what Peter Parker wants?!"_

"IT ISN'T!" shouted Peter. "Killing Norman won't make Gwen wake up!"

 _"But it will make both of us feel better. Besides, it's not like your protests matter any longer. I'm not taking no for an answer anymore. There is not a single organism in this entire multiverse I would rather spend the rest of my life with, Peter Parker. You are the perfect host whether you like it or not, so stop resisting. It will be so much easier if you just accept how wonderful this is. In just a few moments, the bonding process will be complete, and we shall be together forever. Now STOP RESISTING!"_

"NO! I'M NEVER GOING TO STOP! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

In a mad act of desperation, Peter pulled on the slimy fabric of his costume, using every ounce of spider strength he had, but it was like pulling hot sticky tar off a recently paved road. The symbiote wasn't budging.

 _"How ironic. You can lift close to two hundred tons, but you are struggling to take your clothes off."_ The symbiote chuckled. _"What's that little human phrase again? Your mind says no, but your body says Yes? Your body is growing more accustomed to my presence, Peter Parker. There is no longer any point in struggling. Your body knows how much you need me, how much we need each other. Stop Resisting!"_

"NEVER!" Peter pulled again, roaring and wailing as his own muscles failed him, falling off the balcony from the last tug and landing near the bell of the church. The symbiote was squealing with delight and triumph, and Spider-Man could feel his resolve fading away.

"Come on! Get off me! GET OFF!"

Panic and defeat began to creep into Peter's mind, but in his darkest hour, fate delivered salvation unto the hero.

The clock struck midnight.

 **GONG!**

 _"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"_ screeched the symbiote as the church bells flared to life.

 _"TOO LOUD! TOO NOISY!"_

 **GONG!**

The symbiote screamed in pain, and the costumed flared to life with tendrils wiggling all over the place. With the sound of the bells echoing around the hero, it now looked like Peter was actually getting somewhere with his efforts to pull the black suit off.

 _"Peter Parker, get away from the_ noise!" pleaded the symbiote. _"Get way from that awful noise! GET AWAY!"_

 **GONG!**

"Come on! Just a little more!" Grunted Peter as he felt the slimy residue rip apart from his chest.

Now the symbiote was truly scared. The noise was just too much. No torture device any human could come up with paled in comparison to what this infernal racket was doing to its body. As Peter's pulling grew stronger with each clang of the bell, the symbiote felt itself growing weaker, barely able to hold on to its host.

 _"Peter... You're hurting me..."_ the symbiote whimpered feebly. _"Stop the noise! Anything but the noise! Make it stop!"_

"Hurting you? Good!" growled Peter, tugging even harder. "Then maybe you'll finally get off me and stay off!"

That stopped the symbiote cold. It didn't even have a proper functioning heart and it could feel it breaking.

 _"You... want... to hurt me? W-w-why... You can't mean that..._

Peter didn't answer. He just continued to pull.

 **GONG!**

 _"Peter... Please... don't do this... we need each other... please... don't kill me... You're... killing me..."_

 **GONG!**

 _"Only... wanted... host... only... wanted... together... P-P-P-Peter Parker... S-S-S-Spider-Man..."_

 **GONG! GONG! GONG!**

 **"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"** The symbiote and human screamed together for the last time, and with one final pull, the symbiote burst out of Peter's body in a flailing mass of slimy tentacles, splattering onto the balcony of the church, where it trickled down the walls like a black blood stain.

"YES!" Peter howled at the heavens, and with the last of his strength fading away, he collapsed to the ground as the bell finished its twelve rings.

His nerves were on fire, his heart was beating in overdrive, and every bone in his body ached. Nothing even came close to the struggle this symbiote put him through.

Peter staggered back to his feet, his breath heavy. "Oh... My... God..." He panted. "That... was a nightmare..."

But Spidey couldn't allow himself to rest yet. Even though the fight to pull the alien off was over, he still needed to be on high alert. The symbiote could be anywhere, and it would no doubt take advantage of his exhaustion to bond with him a second time, and if it did, Peter feared he wouldn't have the strength to fight it again.

"Come on, Spider Sense, talk to me." Peter whispered under his breath. "If it's still out there, then I'm going to need a warning."

He waited for the tingling sensation, but all he received was silence.

"Nothing... Spider Sense is quiet, so that means it must be dead."

"It's over. It's finally over."

"Wait, Dead? That means I... killed it..."

Suddenly a small twinge of guilt shot through Peter's mind. He remembered how the symbiote sounded during its final attempts to cling onto him. It was crying. It was begging. There was no lying or acting involved. The sound of the bell was pure torture, and Peter just sentenced it to an agonizing death.

"Maybe I could've... taken it back to Connors... Kept it locked up in a test tube somewhere until we figured out what to do with it... Then I wouldn't have had to..."

His chaotic thoughts interrupted him again, reminding him of what the symbiote truly was. Agonizing death or not, the symbiotes behavior painted a clear picture of what it was in the core of its nature and being.

It was a killer.

"No! I can't feel guilty about this!" Peter corrected himself. "It's not like I killed an innocent bystander, and it's not like I killed one of the crooks I fight just like the symbiote was trying to make me do. This wasn't a person, it was a parasite. It was a psychotic alien slime monster straight out of a horror movie that wanted to use me to take over the city and kill people!"

"It's for the best that it's dead... It's for the best..."

But why wasn't he so sure about that?

 _"Great..."_ he thought _._

 _"After Uncle Ben, Gwen, and everything I've had to deal with since the day that spider bit me, the last thing I need is something else to feel guilty about..."_

 _()_

Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, Peter shot out a web line and swung off into the night, but unbeknownst to the wall crawler, the symbiote wasn't dead. Still reeling from the agony of the loud church bells, it was barely clinging onto life, having seeped through the tiny cracks of the church walls and down into its lower levels where it could escape from the noise and lick its wounds.

 _"Still hurts! Too loud! Too much noise, noise, noise, noise! Can't hear it anymore and it still hurts!"_

The symbiote still couldn't believe it. It had lived longer than it could even recall, and throughout every memory in its long expansive life, it failed to recall a single moment in the past where it was genuinely afraid of anything. It was natural to fear death. Despite its pride in its own power, the symbiote knew that everyone eventually dies, including itself. It just never expected the one who came closer than anyone else to killing it to be the one it grew so close to, the one it was once proud to call its perfect host.

 _"Peter Parker... Spider-Man..."_

 _"How could host do this? Why would the perfect host, ANY host, throw away such beautiful gifts like garbage?"_

Without a host, the symbiote no longer had a mouth to scream, no eyes to cry from, no sustenance to heal itself from the damage the church bells inflicted. It could only debate with its own thoughts. Reduced to its base form, nothing more than a puddle of pitch black plasma, all it could do was slither further away from the roof of the church and into the dark alleys below. Despite not having eyes, it could still see Peter swinging off in the distance of the New York City skyline, the human who betrayed it drifting further away, abandoning it to die in this rotten hole in some dark corner like the parasite Peter believed it to be.

 _"Incomplete... Without Purpose... Without Identity..."_

 _"Alone..."_

Now it understood why it was so afraid. From the moment the members of its race were born, every single symbiote dreamed of finding the perfect host and spending the rest of their lives bonded with them. The idea of a perfect host was subjective, so a typical symbiote would likely have to go through several hosts before finding one to its liking. If it decided there was a better host out there, or if the host simply no longer pleased the symbiote, it would just jump ship and leave to find a better one.

However, in the case of this symbiote, there was no better host on this planet. Sure, there were other powerful humans out there, even mutant humans, some who completely outclassed Spider-Man in terms of their levels of strength and skill, but the symbiote didn't care about any of them. It was adamant in its belief that even if it sampled the minds and bodies of all seven billion humans on this backwater planet, none would come even remotely close to matching what Peter gave it.

And now it would never experience it again, but as the pain from the church bells and the fear of its own demise began to subside, a new emotion replaced both of them.

Pure cold blooded rage. How dare Peter do this to it! All it wanted was to experience its purpose together with Peter and in return it would give him all the power he needed to have everything he ever wanted. Peter just needed to be educated that he wasn't doing his job properly, that it would be better for both of them and the city itself if the criminal vermin just died in the most painful way possible. This was the thanks it got for all it did to try and help him? Is this how he repays the kindness of those he was supposed to love, by abandoning them?

 _"HE MUST PAY!"_ Those three words repeated themselves over and over again, never leaving the alien's thoughts for a second.

It then realized it was wrong. The symbiote may be vulnerable and incomplete at the moment, but it was not without purpose. It still had a reason to keep going, and this time it wasn't just to find another host, but to exact revenge on its former host.

 _"How ironic. By casting me aside and attempting to kill me, Spider-Man gave the greatest gift any symbiote could receive, a true purpose, something to live for, and what makes it so much sweeter is I can carry this purpose forever."_

Inside the twisted and sociopathic logic of the symbiote's mind, its emotions were now running wild, joy accompanying rage and smothering its distress completely, twisting itself further and further into a growing bout of hysteria and insanity.

If the symbiote could speak right now, it would have laughed.

 _"Perhaps my perfect host loved me after all, but even so, he still needs to be punished. It's only fair that I give what he gave. He must suffer as I suffered, indescribable pain beyond his wildest imagination, but not fatal. Oh No! Not fatal. Leave him alive throughout every ounce of suffering, only until he gets down on his knees and begs for forgiveness. Only when tears are streaming from his eyes and he realizes how sinful it was to separate from his other half, will I give him the fateful choice. Rejoin with me and let us become one once again, or die!"_

The symbiote was now giddy with excitement as countless methods of carrying out its vengeance shuffled through its mind. It treated its Spider, its Peter, like any symbiote would treat its perfect host, with indescribable levels of love and care, giving its Spider exactly what he wanted, even though he didn't know what he truly wanted, and just like any symbiote who loved its perfect host, this symbiote would continue to give its perfect host want he wanted. If Spider-Man wanted to treat the symbiote like an enemy, then the symbiote would respond in kind with the appropriate gift. It would create the most terrifying enemy Spider-Man would ever have to face, an enemy he could never defeat, an enemy he would grow to fear.

Scorpion, Mysterio, Shocker, Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Kraven the Hunter, not even Norman Osborn himself, The Green Goblin, could hold a candle to the type of monster the symbiote was capable of creating, and in this battle between hero and villain, it was this new villain who had the advantage. Peter may believe he understood the true nature of the symbiote after he and Doctor Connors studied it in the science labs, but that Reptile, Curt Connors barely scratched the surface at what the symbiote was capable of. Peter knew practically nothing about the symbiote, but after sharing a body and mind with Peter for several months, the symbiote knew everything about Peter, his hopes, his dreams, his ambitions, and most importantly, his loved ones.

Now there was just one problem left. The symbiote needed a new host and fast. Time was of the essence, and being severely weakened from that terrible noise made the situation even more dire. Without a host, it couldn't heal from such pain, and it would eventually starve to death without the essential sustenance and shelter a human body provided.

But there were no humans around. The symbiote began to panic, but even so, it still retained enough rationality to slowly calm itself back down. It knew the dangers of choosing the wrong host, and after spending so much time with its perfect host, it saw the absolute worst of the human race thanks to Peter giving it the opportunity to fight them. It was like an infestation of cockroaches and vermin, and there was no way the symbiote would allow itself to bond with vermin.

The problem with following that rule though was that bonding was like gambling in Vegas. It never knew what kind of person its host was, ideal or corrupt, until after they bonded, and once that happened, the symbiote would be changed forever, taking a piece of its host's identity into itself. It had no control over this aspect of its biology, but it was still grateful for it. Taking pieces of its host's identity filled the missing pieces of its own identity, but such a gift was a double edged sword.

It remembered all too well what happened when bonding with Wade Wilson.

The symbiote shuddered, almost afraid that the aforementioned madman would come out of nowhere and terrorize it again.

The alien weighed its options once again. Peter's delicious mind and his herculean body were strong, but his heart was weak. The one memory that left the deepest scar was the tragic fate of his Gwen.

Oh yes, the symbiote was a fast learner. Like a book worm in a library it spent every waking moment experiencing Peter's memories as if it was actually living through them. Peter's life was infested with tragedy, and soon Peter's pain became the symbiote's pain, but the most painful memory of them all was the unspeakable horror he experienced when he succeeded in saving his Gwen Stacy, but at the same time he failed. That wicked monster Goblin threw her off the bridge to her doom, and now she lay motionless for five years, trapped in her own body as nothing more than a living corpse.

At first, when the symbiote saw this memory, it was quite jealous. How could Spider-Man love someone more than itself? It was inconceivable. Surely, when Peter grew to understand it better, he would forget about this insignificant female and move on. He didn't need her to be happy. All he needed was his other half bonded to him forever. If he still wanted a human mate and spawn of his own, then there were plenty of other females out there, so what made this one so special?

The symbiote soon found the answer when it watched the memory a second time, and then a third, fourth and fifth time, and soon it found itself watching every single memory Peter shared with Gwen, how much they grew to care for each other, to have each other's backs, to support each other's dreams. They were more than mates, they were the strongest of allies, promising each other that whatever problems come their way, they would face it head on together and never abandon each other.

It was no wonder why it hurt Peter so much whenever their relationship became strained, whenever they argued. Peter had no qualms separating from the symbiote, but he would never want to separate from his Gwen.

Was this what it was like to bond the human way, to have two separate bodies and yet still be one?

The symbiote snapped itself out of its reminiscence of such delicious memories. This was why Peter needed to understand why people like Norman Osborn deserved nothing more than an agonizing death. Spider-Man and the Green Goblin fought each other several times before the incident on the George Washington Bridge. If Peter had just butchered the Goblin like the filthy animal he was, then Gwen would still be with awake.

And if Gwen were still awake, then the symbiote wouldn't have been so frustrated and angry from seeing such memories. It hated Norman Osborn even more than Peter did, for the Goblin created a problem the symbiote couldn't solve. The symbiote lived to make Peter happy, but how could its perfect host be happy when his greatest source of happiness lay injured beyond healing. Of course, such injuries were ridiculously easy for the symbiote to heal. It could even keep the effects of cancer at bay if it wanted to, but its God level healing abilities came with a catch. It could only heal a host from such life threatening injuries.

The only way the symbiote could give Peter what he wanted was to...

Bond with Gwen...

Wait a second...

The gears in the symbiote's twisted deranged mind were now turning in overdrive. In the end, all of Peter's suffering came back to Gwen.

This seemingly normal and mundane human female had done the unthinkable without the symbiote even realizing it.

That's why the bonding process took so long. That's why Peter didn't want to become one with the symbiote.

The symbiote was never Peter's other half to begin with, Gwen Stacy was.

If the symbiote was to ever have its revenge against its former host, if it was ever to regain what it lost, then that needed to change.

It was such a simple plan, the alien couldn't believe it didn't think of it sooner.

Why bother trying to create a monster who could create a level of suffering for Peter that dwarfed the tragedy of losing Gwen, when it could grant Peter's wish?

If the symbiote had a mouth on its amorphous body at the moment, it would have twisted into the most sinister grin imaginable.

 _"Yeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssss… It's perfect... The greatest revenge and the greatest demonstration of love at the same time! The greatest wish of Peter Parker twisted into a tool of symbiotic vengeance... poisoned by his greatest mistake and greatest failure..."_

 _"His heart's desire injected with **VENOM!"**_

The symbiotes slimy body quivered with delight as it regained a small amount of energy, its thoughts dwelling on that last single word. It had a nice ring to it, and the thought of ending any internal conflict within itself was too good to pass up. It no longer needed to choose between making Peter suffer and attempting to bond with Peter again. Why choose between vengeance and reunion when it could have both?

 _"Oh yesssssssss… The look on his face when he finds out... Priceless... Now, how to get to Gwen's resting place? Too far away to travel there without a host. Would surely run out of energy and starve to death long before getting there. Don't sense any humans nearby. What to do, what to do?"_

"Meow!"

The symbiote turned in the direction of the sound. It was no human, but it was a warm blooded life form of some kind. Based on the acquired knowledge of animal lifeforms on this planet, it was called a "Cat". It must have wandered into the area behind the church looking for food.

The symbiote gagged at the idea of bonding with a Non-Sapient host. Humans were the only creatures on this planet with brains properly developed enough to give it the nutrients it needed. Lesser creatures like this cat simply didn't cut it. That's not to say bonding was impossible. It could bond with the cat if it wanted to, but it would never serve as a permanent solution.

Besides, even if the cat was intelligent enough to serve as a host indefinitely, the symbiote already chose its next bonding partner.

However, it did still need transportation to reach the hospital, and in its weakened state, beggars can't be choosers. It would have to make due for the time being.

The cat then noticed the symbiote's presence and arched its back, hissing at the moldy mass, only to realize too late that it should have run. Before it could do so, the symbiote pounced on the cat.

()

Mercy General Hospital in downtown Manhattan was one of the last privately owned medical institutes in the United States of America, and for the past five years, it served as the current residence of one Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy. Most people found the name of this particular hospital to be quite fitting, but if Gwen were capable of voicing her opinion about her current situation, she would have scoffed at the name.

She likely would have preferred being dead, preferred that Spider-Man made no effort to save her at all and the Green Goblin succeeded in murdering her, granting him that single satisfying small victory over the Wall Crawler.

Five Years stolen from her life and being forced to spend twenty four hours a day, seven days a week on a hospital bed as a living corpse was no mercy at all.

It was a prison.

Ask her doctors and they would say it was a miracle they managed to stabilize her brain and keep her alive. Dozens of times in the ER following Spider-Man delivering her there, she scared them half to death with her vitals crashing, reviving, and then crashing again, but despite one of the worst cases of head trauma they had ever seen, they saved her, if one could actually call it that.

The diagnosis wasn't good. Every day, the doctors and nurses checked on her, but just as they delivered the news to Gwen's friends and family members, they knew that with an incident this severe, they had no idea when she would wake up, and since the fifth year had passed, it was starting to grow doubtful that she would ever wake up at all.

It was three in the morning now, the time when activity in the hospital grew so quiet it transformed into a ghost town, with the lighting giving it the feel of a haunted house, but that was just part of the natural process of winding down for the night. Patients needed to sleep and doctors were finally allowed to go home with only the late night shift staying behind in case of any other emergencies. More importantly though, it was the point in time when security started to grow lax, with many of them desperate to go home themselves, sometimes nodding off and falling asleep on the job,.

As a result, nobody noticed the strange looking stray cat wander into the building.

Nobody was around to witness the cat meticulously stalking through the halls until it reached Gwen Stacy's room, as if it somehow knew exactly where to go.

Nobody was around to witness the cat vomit a strange black slime out of its mouth like a hairball and then wander out of the hallway in a dazed and confused manner as if the cat had no idea how it got there.

And of course, nobody noticed the puddle of black slime slither its way underneath the crack of the door, creeping closer and closer to the vulnerable Sleeping Beauty.

All it took was a single momentary touch for the bonding process to begin. It was like an electric shock, a jolt of rushing energy throughout the symbiote's oozing form as it touched Gwen's arm for the first time. The cat it used to get here was nothing compared to this. After being separated from Peter for only a few hours, it felt like centuries since it felt the energy and comfort of a host, and it wanted more.

With Gwen still unconscious and unable to notice what was going on, the symbiote's tendrils crept across Gwen's arm and down to her torso, slowly spreading across her body and anchoring itself in place until every inch of Gwen's body was engulfed in the slimy shroud. Once completely cocooned, the symbiote began the final stage of the bonding, with the texture of its form flattening itself against Gwen's skin and transitioning from a coat of slime into a sheath of metallic obsidian leather. White web patterns began to decorate the arms of Gwen's new bodysuit, and for the final touch, a giant white spider symbol manifested just above Gwen's supple breasts, a touching memoir of its previous host and a constant reminder of what it was now fighting for.

And then, just as quickly as it appeared, the skintight body suit vanished, with the symbiote allowing itself to be absorbed into Gwen's skin like black suntan lotion. It was like the symbiote was never there to begin with. It knew that once Gwen awoke, more humans would enter the room to inspect her, and it couldn't afford to make its presence known to the other humans in the building right away. Playing the long term patient game was much more beneficial, and it would pay off in spades once it revealed itself again to Spider-Man when the time was right.

Repairing the damage to her body and brain would be child's play. She would be back at full strength within seconds.

For a brief moment, the symbiote grew concerned that it made the wrong choice after all. If Gwen was anything like Peter, then persuading her to see things its way would prove just as difficult, but as the symbiote burrowed its own consciousness deep inside Gwen's brain, all traces of doubt faded away. She was just as perfect a host as it thought she would be. It would indeed prove difficult for Gwen and Symbiote to merge into one being, but unlike Peter, Gwen's mind was vulnerable, traumatized, and fragile, and possessed many more weak spots, which the symbiote could exploit.

It would be difficult, but nothing was impossible for the symbiote.

 _"Oh Gwen Sssssssstacy"_ The symbiote purred as the bonding neared its completion. _"How I wish we could have met under better circumstances."_

 _"Rest easy Gwen Stacy. Your other half is here, and if it's the last thing we ever do, all who have caused us to suffer will pay! Green Goblin, Spider-Man, all of them shall suffer from the venomous vengeance born from our new and glorious bond."_

 _"Rest now, Gwen Stacy. Rest now, and be reborn!"_

Then, as if waking up from a terrible nightmare, Gwen's eyes did something they had never done in five years. They burst open, and her body shot upward from the hospital bed, shocked beyond all reason, but instead of a normal human scream, an ear piercing, bone chilling alien screech escaped the traumatized woman's mouth.

Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy was awake at last.

* * *

 **Authors Notes:**

 **And so I finish this chapter with my gift to you all.**

 **I give you... GWENOM!**

 **Why am I going this route? Well to be honest, in every single piece of media where the Venom Symbiote has interacted with Spider-Man, despite being a blood thirsty alien monster, it seems to behave like a jilted ex girlfriend towards Spidey. On one hand it wants to get back at Spider-Man for dumping it, but at the same time, Spider-Man was the perfect host, so it's all like "PLEASE TAKE ME BACK!"**

 **I wanted a fanfiction that allowed me to portray this duality to the greatest extent, and honestly, in most fanfictions I read where someone else gets the Venom Symbiote, the symbiote behaves with its new host the same way it behaved when it bonded with Eddy Brock, which just wouldn't be true, since symbiote personalities change depending on the personality of the host. Eddy Brock and Venom were the perfect combination since they had the same vengeful goal.**

 **Gwenom will have vengeful desires, but unlike Eddy it's against someone else entirely. I think you all know who I'm talking about.**

 **So what did you think of the first chapter to this ambitious Spider-Man Story? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Whatever your opinion may be, feel free to leave a review and let me know!**

 **Until Next Time, This is Nox Descious signing out!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Welcome Back Everyone!**

 **I am absolutely shocked at the reception I received from the first chapter!**

 **I had no idea this story would catch so many people's attention so quickly so a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed and favorited.**

 **IMPORTANT NOTE:**

 **A few reviewers have asked me if I intend to include the events of "Sin's Past" in this story, and the answer is a BIG FAT NO! In this fanfiction, Sin's Past Never Happened, which means the You Know What between Gwen and Norman never happened and that also means the Twins don't exist.**

 **There is also the matter of the "Clone Conspiracy" which revealed that Gwen found out that Peter was Spider-Man right before she died. That detail also never happened in this fanfiction. As of right now, Gwen still doesn't know that Peter is Spider-Man but a certain symbiote is more than happy to tell her.**

 **With that being said, I hope you all take a liking to this chapter just as much as you liked the first one!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 2: Close Encounter

"GOTCHA!"

It was a miraculous catch, and Spider-Man was scared half to death that he wouldn't make it in time, but his web line caught the falling Gwen Stacy.

All traces of heart attack inducing fear were replaced with pure elation and relief. Gwen was safe. That was all that mattered, and as the wall crawler pulled the blonde damsel up the web line and onto the flat surface of the pillar above the George Washington Bridge, he participated in his own brand of justified self glorification.

"Spider Powers, I love you! Not only am I the most dashing hero on two legs, I'm also the most versatile. Who else could have saved a falling girl from certain dea…"

He paused as he brought Gwen close to him. Something was wrong. He knew it the moment he saw her face. Eyes closed, face pale and drained, Why wasn't she moving?

"Gwen?!"

No answer. No movement, no signs of life.

It can't be. It just can't be. He saved her. He saved her!

"Hey? Hey, kid! What's wrong?" Peter called his girlfriend.

Once again, no answer. No Pulse. No breath. No signs of life.

Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy, the love of Peter Parker's life, was dead.

"Oh No!" Peter whimpered, the horrifying reality setting in at last. His throat went dry and his heart stopped dead in its tracks. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO! Gwen, talk to me! Don't be dead, Gwen! Please! I don't want you to be dead!"

His words fell on deaf ears, and then the roaring sound of a glider broke Peter out of his horror induced trance. There up above him was the man himself, Gwen Stacy's murderer hovering over her corpse like a scavenger looking for meat, Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin.

Gwen Stacy was dead, and the monster in front of him was smiling about it, laughing about it.

It didn't even matter now if Spider-Man beat this man and brought him to justice. It didn't matter if Norman Osborn died, or if he spent the rest of his life behind bars.

The Goblin won, and he knew he won. At this point, Peter doubted he cared what happened next. Even if Peter beat him, Norman Osborn would still have this one single victory that outweighed every single defeat, and he was loving every second of it.

"YOU!" Peter roared at the Goblin. "You think this is a game, Osborn? You think this is a sick joke? You'll pay for this, Osborn! Do you hear me?!"

The Green Goblin savored Spider-Man's rage as he cackled like a wild hyena. His victory was all the more sweeter to see Peter react this way.

"Yes, I hear you, but I was so annoyed at your whining that I wasn't really paying attention. Now are we going to continue our little battle, or will you just be a good little Spider and just allow one of my little toys to hit you? I mean at this point, I would be doing you a favor since your death will reunite you with your precious little Gwen."

Spider-Man saw red.

"I'LL TEAR YOU TO PIECES!" he screamed. Norman readied the bomb, but Spider-Man was on him before he could throw it. The wall crawler pounced on the Goblin with lightning speed, knocking him off his glider, and the two crashed to the ground, wrestling with each other in a desperate struggle to gain the upper hand. Norman may have the Goblin Formula Steroid pumping through his veins, but Peter's rage was its own steroid, and Norman soon found himself on the defensive as Peter kept dishing out blow after overwhelming blow. The fight was over far quicker than either of them expected, and soon enough, Peter had the Goblin completely subdued and pinned down.

Norman's head slumped down as he fell unconscious, but Peter wasn't about to let his enemy rest.

"You look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you, Norman! Look me in the eyes!" Peter pulled off his mask to get a look at the man responsible for his girlfriend's death, only to receive the shock of his life, a true nightmare behind the face of the emerald demon.

It wasn't Norman Osborn under the mask. It was Peter Parker himself.

"You... You're not Norman... You're Me?! But... But how? I don't understand!"

 _"What's there to not understand, Spider-Man? Norman Osborn didn't kill Gwen Stacy, WE DID!"_

"That voice! Oh no! No! Not that voice again!"

His eyes confirmed what his ears told him. Instead of holding his doppelganger in a Goblin costume, the scenery around him changed, and Peter found himself in front of a mirror. His mind was too confused to explain what was going on around him, but he didn't even have time to comprehend it once the symbiote dealt him another horror.

He was wearing the black suit again.

 _"What's wrong, Spider-Man?" The symbiote spoke to him in a sinister false condolence. "You should be happy! Now that Gwen is out of the way, I can have you all to myself! Nobody will come between us! Perhaps we should do the same to your Aunt May just in case she disapproves of our new relationship."_

"NO!" Peter screamed. "I got rid of you! Get off of me! GET OFF!"

 _"You can't pull me off this time, dearest host. It's too late! No loud noises will ever separate us again! We are one, Spider-Man! **WE ARE ONE!"**_

"NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOO! GET OFF ME!"

()

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Peter woke up with a start, and to his sincere relief, it wasn't the symbiote that was smothering his body, just the blankets of his bed. He wasn't anywhere near the George Washington Bridge. He was back home in his apartment. He had been asleep the whole time.

"Just a dream, a nightmare." he said to himself. The terror was over, but his mind was still reeling from it. He had nightmares before, but he never experienced a nightmare that bad in months.

"It's official. My subconscious enjoys torturing me." He grumbled as he got out of bed. "Most Normal people just have bad dreams about their teeth falling out or being forced to do a public speech with no pants on, but do I get such a mercy? Nooooooooo! Instead my own mind plays the blame game and points the finger at me about every bad thing that's happened to me, while at the same time taking advantage of my fear that the symbiote is going to come back. Can't I just have a normal bad dream for once in my life?"

His half open eyes drifted over to the clock. Without any caffeine in his system, he was practically a zombie. Eleven-Thirty in the morning. He was too tired to be horrified of the idea that he was several hours late for work again. With his late night crime fighting patrols that kept him up all night, his sleep schedule was the part of his life suffering the most, and with the symbiote incident the night before, it was no wonder he was so exhausted that he slept through both his alarm clock and the alarm on his phone.

Speaking of his phone, it began to ring.

"Damnit." Muttered Peter. He knew it was J Jonah Jameson. He was hoping he could at least get some coffee in his system before hearing his boss unleash the mother of all scolding rants at him and threatened to fire him for the umpteenth time. Doctor Connors would sometimes cover for him, but his friend could only do it so many times before old JJ got suspicious.

Peter picked up his phone and prepared his ears to bleed from Old Flat Top's yelling, but to his surprise, it wasn't the Bugle calling, it was a completely different number.

Confused, Peter answered the phone.

"Hello, may I speak to a Mister Peter Parker."

"You're speaking to him. What's going on?" replied the exhausted young man.

"Hello Mister Parker. This is Doctor Claire Temple from Mercy General Hospital calling about...'

"YOU'RE GWEN'S DOCTOR!" Peter's interrupted him. Now his mind was pumping full of more energy than any caffeine could grant someone. Any form of news related to Gwen was cause to be on high alert. "Why? What's wrong? Is Gwen Okay? Did something happen?!"

Peter knew the hospital wouldn't call him directly unless there was a change in Gwen's condition. Most of the time, he only heard the updates of the doctors whenever he performed his weekly visits to Gwen's hospital bed, and every time it would be the same report. No change at all. Peter eventually grew bitter of hearing these words from the doctors over and over again, and throughout this most recent year, he began to doubt whether Gwen would wake up at all.

"You know what, considering your reaction to hearing my voice, I think I'll just skip all the medical technicalities and give you the news in layman's terms." Dr. Temple spoke in a soft and professional tone.

Peter could hear his own heartbeat increasing into rapid overdrive, dreading what the doctor could possibly say. Whatever happened must have occurred last night, and that was the same night he experienced his horrifying battle with the symbiote, so he couldn't have known what was going on with Gwen at the time. It was like a coin toss, a fifty-fifty chance of the news being good or bad.

Then the doctor spoke over the phone.

"Mister Parker, Gwen Stacy is awake. Not only that, but she seems to have fully recovered."

Peter dropped the phone.

()

It was completely unknown to him how long it took for his mind to comprehend that the doctor's announcement wasn't a joke, and the trip from his apartment to the hospital was a complete blur as well. His mental computer had crashed and it spent the next hour rebooting. Right at the point in his life when he started to doubt it would ever happen, it happened. The Nightmare was over, and now both its victims could wake up and reunite with each other.

As Peter walked down the hallway to Gwen's room, his still recovering mind, running on fumes, was rehearsing dozens of different things he could say to Gwen once he saw her beautiful face again, her open eyes, but he finally accepted that most likely he would just babble like an idiot and make a fool of himself. Gwen would understand. Who wouldn't react this way after hearing their girlfriend was practically back from the dead?

Doctor Temple was right there at the doorway waiting for him, and the African American Doctor stepped aside so she could let Peter pass.

"She's waiting for you." she said with a warm motherly smile.

Peter opened the door and there she was, sitting upright on her hospital bed in a picture perfect posture. It was like meeting her for the first time again. She was no longer wearing her hospital gown. Instead she was dressed in the same clothes she wore before she was taken here, her black shirt which hugged her amazing hourglass figure, partially hidden by her green jacket and blue pencil skirt. Then there was her headband, the obsidian black headband that held her gorgeous blonde locks in place.

Peter couldn't describe it. He knew going in that he would be at a loss for words upon seeing her again, but even still, this was beyond how he expected to feel.

"Hey Gwen..."

"Hey Pete..." Gwen finally spoke. It was only two words and already Peter was overwhelmed. Her voice, he was actually hearing her beautiful voice for the first time I five years. Peter never considered himself a religious man, but if there was a God, then this was the greatest gift the lord above could have given him.

"Gwen, I... OOOOOOOOOOFFF!"

Before Peter could utter another word, Gwen leaped out of her bed like a pouncing leopard and tackled Peter in a bone crushing hug. Nothing prepared Peter for something like that. Gwen was squeezing him so tight, he thought she actually would break bone.

Since when was Gwen this strong? Heck, since when was any hospital patient capable of this much energy and strength?

It was strange, but Peter didn't really care. Painful hug aside, all that mattered was being able to see Gwen awake and alive again.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… We missed you, Our Peter." Gwen purred as she nuzzled her face in Peter's chest.

"Uh... we?" Peter spoke to her, growing even more confused and slightly uncomfortable from Gwen's overly flirtatious tone of voice, not that he would complain. Then, as if snapping out of a spell, Gwen suddenly broke off the hug, looking confused herself.

"Uh, I mean, I missed you. Sorry, I don't know why _we_ said that, Er, I said that." Gwen corrected herself, and she gave her boyfriend a sheepish laugh.

The laugh was quick to die though, and the joy of reuniting with her boyfriend began to fade away once she remembered how long she had been in this room. Her smile vanished and she turned away from the young genius.

"Gwen?" Peter spoke to her, growing worried.

"So has it really been five years?" She asked, her whispering voice showing painful levels of bitterness.

Peter let out a loud sigh. "Yeah, it has."

"The doctors told me how often you visited me." She continued. "I... I'm sorry this hurt you so much... Having to see me like this all the time..."

"NO GWEN! Don't apologize!" Peter corrected her. "This wasn't your fault. It was the Goblin who did this to you."

"And Spider-Man..." Gwen growled under her breath, causing Peter to flinch.

"Gwen, Spider-Man didn't..."

"I KNOW!" Gwen's sudden outburst made Peter jump. "I know... I know he didn't throw me off the bridge, but..."

"Peter just tell me why? Out of all the times Spider-Man could have failed to save someone, why did it have to be me?"

"I don't know, Gwen." Peter confessed. "But I think Spider-Man asks that question to himself every single day," And it was true. Peter did constantly ask himself that question.

"Yeah... sure he does..." Gwen growled quietly, but then she noticed the pained look on her boyfriend and regretted that remark.

"Peter, I don't want to spend our first day together in five years arguing about Spider-Man, or even argue at all. I'm sorry..."

She hugged him again, and this time it was more gentle, the kind of hug a woman gave when she needed her boyfriend's shoulder to cry on.

"You have every right to be angry." Peter comforted her, returning the hug. "And I guess you have to blame somebody. Heck, I blame myself half the time."

"What?" Gwen's head perked up and made eye contact. "Peter, you have a ton of problems and flaws that follow you everywhere you go, but you're the best boyfriend I could ask for, and my best friend period. Don't you dare say or even think that not being a perfect boyfriend caused this. There was nothing you could do about it."

Gwen then smiled as she thought of something funny. "Although I wouldn't say no to a fantasy of you coming to the rescue and kicking the Goblin's ass instead of Spider-Man. Little science nerd, Peter Parker to the rescue, and he definitely gets the girl in the end, doesn't he?"

Gwen's attempt to lighten the mood worked, even though she had no idea that her made up fantasy wasn't a fantasy at all.

The two remained in a silent embrace, letting time pass and not taking notice of anything except each other. It seemed like several hours had passed when Gwen finally spoke up again.

"Take me home, Peter." she pleaded. "Just take me home, and get me out of here."

"Alright, Gwen." Peter was eager to leave himself. He had enough of hospitals, and they could never truly rekindle their relationship until they got out.

But then Doctor Temple intruded into the hospital room.

"Actually, Miss Stacy, I don't really think I should give you the green light to leave." she said, much to the dismay of Peter and Gwen.

"What? Why not? I'm fine!" protested Gwen. "I've never felt better in my life. Whatever you guys did to help me wake up, it was nothing short of a miracle!"

"That's just it, Miss Stacy, Mister Parker, it is a miracle by every definition of the word." Doctor Temple tried her best to contain how baffled she was at Gwen's condition and remain as professional as possible. "Let me explain. You know how when you see someone wake up from a coma in the movies, it happens instantaneously, just like it happened with you? Well that NEVER Happens in real life. Under normal circumstances, the comatose patient would transition from comatose to semi-vegetative, and the process of waking up completely would take several hours, or even a few days. Recovery is always a gradual process. Signs of life are at first minute, and then the patient becomes more self aware of their surroundings over time until they can finally move and speak. Sudden awakenings are extremely rare, and even then, they are never as sudden and instantaneous as yours."

Being science majors themselves, this was easy for Peter and Gwen to follow along. It was only now that Peter realized the unusual circumstance of Gwen's awakening. He never paid any mind to it until now because he was just too excited and overjoyed to see her.

Doctor Temple continued her explanation.

"Furthermore, patients who have been in a coma as long as you have, Miss Stacy, usually require extensive levels of rehabilitation treatment. Their bodies have been inactive for such a long time, that basic motor functions such as walking with your legs or grabbing things with your hands are extremely difficult. Then there's the muscular atrophy that would inevitably set in over time since your body has done nothing but lie on a bed for five years. You however, Miss Stacy, are not just an exception to this medical status quo, you are a dumbfounding anomaly. The physical condition of your body, which I can only describe as perfection, should not be possible for a woman who sustained the level of head trauma you received and stayed in a coma as long as you did. In short, Miss Stacy, you are correct. What happened to you is nothing short of a miracle. I am just worried that this might be a false miracle, and your body isn't actually as recovered as we thought it was. I was thinking of keeping you here for one more day and observing you just in case."

"Well you ran tests when I woke up didn't you?" Gwen asked. Much to Peter's surprise, she shared no curiosity over the doctor's explanation of how unusual her recovery was. She was oddly dismissive of it, not caring how she woke up, and almost cold blooded in the way she spoke to the doctor. "

"You checked and double checked all my bodily functions, and you said to me, and I quote, everything seems normal, correct?" Gwen continued, and the doctor flinched at her vicious tone of voice.

"Well, Yes, Miss Stacy, there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with you, but..."

"But nothing!" Gwen interrupted. "I've been stuck in this hospital for five years, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend another second here!"

"Gwen, what's gotten into you?" Peter inquired, growing worried. "Are you okay?"

"OF COURSE I'M NOT OKAY!" shouted Gwen. "YOU TRY FEELING OKAY IF YOU WAKE UP AND REALIZE THAT FIVE YEARS OF YOUR LIFE HAVE BEEN STOLEN FROM YOU!"

She was hyperventilating, but as she felt Peter's arms around her shoulder, her breathing grew more calm and she relaxed again.

Tears replaced the anger in her eyes. "I'm sorry Pete..." Gwen whispered, apologizing to both him and the doctor. "I just want my recovery to feel real..."

Doctor Temple sighed, feeling sympathy for the young woman. She imagined that if she was in the same position as Gwen, she would want the same thing. This girl was stronger than most, especially after everything she went through. Doctor Temple doubted she would be able to prevent herself from breaking down and falling to pieces if she was in the same situation, and she could only imagine how much pain Peter went through.

"Alright Miss Stacy. Since our initial test results showed that you don't appear to be at risk of any complications, then you can leave, but if you're really going to do this, then I'm going to need you to sign this waiver stating you willingly left the hospital against medical advice. Nothing serious, just liability issues and all that."

Gwen breathed a huge sigh. At last, she would finally escape this place. She could see the sun again, feel its warmth on her skin, and then feel the breeze of the wind and the moisture of the rain. She could taste true freedom again and feel alive once more.

The Doctor guided the couple out of Gwen's room and to the main lobby where she gave Gwen the paper work needed to fill out, while Peter waited in the hallway. For once in his life, things were starting to go in his favor again. With Gwen back in his life, everything would just be perfect. He could face any obstacle or hardship that came his way with Gwen at his side to weather the storm.

Unfortunately for Peter, his blissful thoughts were interrupted again when his phone rang.

"Oh No..." Peter groaned. This time it really was Jameson. Well, maybe Peter could face ALMOST any obstacle. An angry J Jonah Jameson was one he'd rather avoid.

He reluctantly picked up the phone and answered it.

"This is Peter..."

 **"PARKER!"** the gruff male voice on the other end shouted so loud the phone almost flew out of Peter's hands.

"God Damn It, Parker. It's one thing you show up late, but now you're just off playing hooky? I'm not paying you to sit on your ass and do as you please! I pay you to take pictures of Spider-Man, so you better explain why your ass is not in my office and why you aren't there with any pictures?!"

"Mister Jameson, I'm not playing hooky, I can explain." Peter began, but he was getting nowhere. His foul tempered boss interrupted him again.

"OHHHHH, is it a real explanation this time, or another excuse? I have had it up to here with you, Parker! The only excuse I'll accept is that you're out in the field getting the pictures I need to get Spider-Man out of my city forever! You're lucky I've kept your ass around for so God Damn Long! If it weren't for the fact that you get such top notch pictures of that wall crawling menace you'd have been out on the streets begging for spare change like a bum! So let's hear it, Parker! You give me one good reason, why I shouldn't fire your ass right now and make sure you don't work in this town again?"

Before Peter could answer, his phone was snatched away from him without warning, and Peter was surprised to see that the thief was Gwen, and she was now talking with the Bugle Boss.

"J Jonah Jameson, Hello!" Gwen spoke in an overly sweet voice that sounded rehearsed. "Sorry to interrupt, but I think you might want to reconsider your little threat of firing Peter, if you'll just hear me out."

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" Barked the head of the Bugle. "You put Parker back on the line, RIGHT NOW!"

"Well okay." said Gwen, playing coy. "If you don't want to talk to Gwen Stacy, then I guess you'll miss out on the Bugle's scoop of a lifetime..."

"Gwen what are you doing?!" Peter hissed, but Gwen just shushed him and smiled.

"Wait... Gwen Stacy... THE Gwen Stacy..." Jameson spoke from the other line, his interest now piqued. "You mean to tell me the same girl that Spider-Man attacked and threw off the bridge with his accomplice, The Green Goblin? THAT Gwen Stacy?!"

Peter clenched his fists after hearing that. He was used to Jameson bad mouthing Spider-Man in front of him and coming up with the most vile conspiracy theories, but accusing him of being Gwen Stacy's attacker, saying that he and the Green Goblin were working together? That was going too far. It made his blood boil. He had half a mind to say, to hell with his job, and march straight up to the top floor of the Bugle and punch Jameson square in the jaw.

"The very same Gwen Stacy." answered Gwen. "In case Peter hasn't told you, I'm his girlfriend. Surely you can excuse Peter from work since he just found out this morning that I woke up from my little coma. Wouldn't you want to spend every waking moment with someone you love, if that person had just woken up from a coma?

"Well... I mean... I supposed not... I..." Jameson's angry resolve was starting to fade. So the old nut job did have a heart after all.

"Well he still didn't bother to call in advance and tell me!" Jameson found his resolve again and continued his rant. "If Parker had just communicated like a proper human being should, then we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"

Gwen sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought, but she knew how Jameson thinks. He would only be bribed with one thing.

"Tell you what, Jameson. How would you like to make a deal? How would you like to make a deal that would give you some solid dirt on the wallcrawler and the Goblin?"

The phone line went silent, and Peter's jaw dropped. What the hell was Gwen doing?

"I'm listening..." Jameson's reply finally came.

"GWEN!" Peter found his voice, but Gwen wasn't backing away from her plan.

"Relax Peter! Trust me!" Gwen Stacy silenced her boyfriend again. "So Jameson let me make you a deal. Give Peter say... Two Weeks Paid Vacation... starting right now, just so Peter can spend a little bit of time with his girlfriend. After all, we haven't seen each other in five years thanks to You Know Who. That's all I ask, and then you will get a face to face interview with Gwen Stacy. Everything you want to know about the incident with Spider-Man and the Green Goblin will be yours, and you'll get the story you always wanted. What do you say?"

"I'll give him only one week." Jameson's answer made Gwen smile. He took the bait and now he was hooked.

"Ten Days." Gwen matched Jameson's counter offer.

"Okay, Fine! Ten Days, but if you don't give me something to work with, I'm firing your little boyfriend on the spot. I'm not doing this for Parker. I'm doing this so I can put that menace behind bars where he belongs, you understand?"

"Perfectly!" Gwen replied. "Goodbye Jameson."

"Wait, I'm not done talking to PARK..." Gwen ended the call before he could finish, and she gave the phone back to the speechless slack jawed Peter.

"You're welcome by the way." purred Gwen. "Shall we get out of here, or are you just going to sit there and stare at me?"

Gwen started taking off without Peter, and the science genius ran after her. She only stopped when they were outside the hospital, and that's when it truly sank in what Gwen was trying to do.

"Gwen, are you serious?!" Peter exclaimed. "You're really going to give Jameson more ammunition to use against Spider-Man?"

"I'm going to give him ammunition against the Green Goblin!" Gwen argued back. "Yes, I admit it, I've got a bone to pick with Spider-Man as well for screwing up the way he did, but I'm not going to lie to Jameson's face and tell him that he did throw me off the bridge. I'm going to give him the truth. From the looks of it, it seems a few people actually still think Spider-Man tried to kill me even though its been five years. Honestly that makes no sense to me since The Green Goblin should be rotting in jail by now. Everyone should realize that he did it and not Spider-Man. If Spider-Man caught him, then he at least gave me some proper justice, so he should be grateful I'm doing him a favor instead of siding with Jameson, which I'm actually pretty tempted to do."

Then Gwen Stacy caught the look on Peter's face, the nervous shift in his eyes, the flinch. She had dated him long enough to know every non-verbal tell his body gave whenever something was off. It was a talent.

"Peter what's wrong?"

Peter didn't want to say it, but he couldn't lie to his girlfriend, even though this piece of information would destroy any chance of their reunion being a happy one.

"Yeah, about that. Gwen, I really don't want to have to tell you this, but... Spider-Man never... actually... caught... The Goblin..."

Gwen's eyes widened. For a second, she thought it was just a joke, one of Peter's little attempts at making her laugh, but she saw in his forlorn eyes that her boyfriend wasn't kidding.

Gwen's widened eyes burned and her face contorted with rage.

"He's still walking free?!" She shouted at the top of her lungs. "You mean he got away with what he did to me?!"

"The Goblin fled the country after what happened with you." Peter frantically tried to explain himself. "He's been in hiding ever since the fight on the bridge."

"And Spider-Man didn't go after him?!"

"He couldn't leave the city!" Peter defended his alter ego.

"WHY NOT?!" Screamed Gwen. "Spider-Man's not the only hero in New York you know. Surely they can handle it while Spider-Man hunts the guy who tried to murder me!"

"It's not that simple." Peter tried to explain, but Gwen was having none of it.

"HOW?! How is it not that simple?! If Spider-Man claims to fight for justice and protecting people, then where the hell is the justice of the Stacy Family? Is my family just cursed to suffer whenever Spider-Man is around? First my dad dies and now this happens to me!"

And there it was. Peter was hoping upon all hope that Gwen wouldn't reopen that wound, but she did.

This wasn't the first time Spider-Man failed the Stacy Family, and the first time he failed, it cost New York City its greatest police officer, Captain George Stacy.

He remembered it all too well. He was so preoccupied with fighting Doc Ock, he had no time to stop the falling rubble that was barreling down the building. As a result, the police chief made the ultimate choice to sacrifice himself in order to push a child out of the way of the falling debris. Doing so placed him in the path of the rubble, and George Stacy was crushed before Spider-Man could do anything about it.

George Stacy was given the funeral of a true hero, but Gwen was never the same, and her opinion of Spider-Man was permanently soured.

"Gwen, Spider-Man didn't..."

"I KNOW PETER! I KNOW!" Gwen interrupted him, her anger and hysteria through the roof. "I know Spider-Man didn't kill my dad, but isn't this the mother of all coincidences? I get that even superheroes can fail. I get that superheroes can make mistakes and fail to save people. I understand that bad things happen to good people even though there are heroes around to protect them, but why?! Why does my family have to be the ones who suffer from Spider-Man's mistakes?!"

"Why did he have to make us suffer Peter? Why did he have to make us suffer like that?"

Gwen's anger was now mixed with bawling tears, and Peter could think of nothing that would calm her down. He was so overwhelmed by Gwen's distress that he didn't notice that Gwen was referring to herself in a plural tense again, and the second person she was referring to was not George Stacy.

Peter could only hug her again, but this time Gwen pushed her away.

"I... I'm sorry, Peter... I... Damn it all, look at us. Not even a full day together, and the first big thing that happens in five years is we have a fight."

"Gwen, its not your fault." Peter tried comforting her again, but he was getting nowhere.

"Oh, I know who's fault it is..." Gwen growled, once again scaring Peter as to how angry she was.

"Gwen, this isn't like you..." Peter expressed his concern. "You never get this angry about anything."

"What can I say? Spending five years in a coma changes a person!" There was sarcasm in her remark but no traces of humor or happiness.

There was nothing in her voice but Venom.

"Gwen..."

"Peter, maybe this is a bad idea..." Gwen spoke up, sounding calmer than before. The rage was leaving her, but her sadness still remained. It was almost nerve racking how his conversations with Gwen seemed to shift from a joyful reunion to trying to calm a storm of hysterical anger and then dissolving back into sorrow.

"What's a bad idea?" Peter asked her.

"Maybe... Maybe I should just spend tonight on my own..." Gwen suggested. "I'll head back to our apartment, and you can just spend the night with your Aunt May."

"WHAT?! No, Gwen! I'm not leaving you alone!" Peter was viciously against the idea. Gwen just woke up from a coma. He couldn't let her out of his sight for a second.

"Gwen please, you can't go home on your own, you...MMMMMMFFFF!"

Any further protest was instantly silenced by the biggest kiss Gwen ever gave him, and Peter simply melted into it.

Apparently, life gave him two miracles that day, and this was the second one. Just a simple lip to lip gesture and Peter felt all his problems go away.

Gwen broke the kiss for air, despite their mutual wishes to continue that for longer. Her eyes were still red from crying, but Peter could tell the kiss worked, as if Gwen knew she needed to kiss him to prevent herself from breaking down completely.

"I'll be fine, Petey…" Gwen whispered. "I just need some time to take this all in."

"Gwen are you absolutely sure?" Peter asked with firmness in his voice. He didn't like this at all. He had just gotten Gwen back into his life, and his overprotective mind was screaming at him not to let her out of his sight.

"Peter if this is going to work, you're going to need to trust me!" Gwen insisted. "I don't want us to have another fight, and if we do have another one, it might get so bad, that it could destroy our relationship. It could destroy us! I don't want to ruin what we have, and I know you don't either. It's just going to be one night Peter, and if anything goes wrong, I'll call you. I promise."

Gwen gave Peter's hand a squeeze. "I promise..."

This was enough to get Peter to finally admit defeat. "Alright, but take a cab or an uber! I don't want you walking home!"

"I will... and thanks..." replied Gwen. "Peter... God I missed you..."

"I missed you too Gwen... I hope you feel better soon...

"Yeah... Goodbye Pete..."

The two lovers turned away from each other in order to spare themselves more bitterness and they started walking away in opposite directions, Gwen to the apartments near Empire State University and Peter to his Aunt May's house.

It would take a lot longer than Peter expected for their relationship to rekindle, but this was a start. It was just another battle Peter needed to fight through.

Regardless of that being the simple truth or not, his girlfriend was right. The whole ordeal was going to change her forever, whether Peter liked it or not.

Just not in the way Peter would expect.

()

Gwen Stacy was dead wrong about everything she said.

She wasn't going to be fine at all. She knew it the moment she got home. She actually ignored Peter's wishes about getting someone to drive her home and instead, she decided to walk all the way back, thinking it would clear her head.

It didn't, and it was almost dark by the time she arrived at the apartment. Six months before her coma, she had moved into this place to live close to the Empire State University campus and since her relationship with Peter was getting serious back them, they agreed to live together. Sure it wasn't a palace, quite the opposite in fact, but Gwen could still call it home.

Sad that she rented this place for the purpose of living with Peter, but for five years, there was only once occupant.

Once she got home, she never left the living room couch. She thought she would have the energy and the excitement to celebrate her awakening, but there was nothing but exhaustion in her at the moment. When she began the journey home and separated from Peter, she expected to call all her friends, Flash, Harry, Liz, Mary Jane, and listen to the joy in their voices as they heard her speak for the first time in half a decade, but all she had been doing for the past hour was stare off into space.

The realization of how much of her life was stolen from her came at her all at once. This was no fairy tale happy ending. This wasn't Sleeping Beauty waking up and living happily every after with Prince Charming. This was her real life, and it wasn't going to magically go back to normal any time soon.

It was late Autumn now, just after Halloween, and she would have to restart her college courses all over again when the Spring Semester came along. It was like a baffling dream. All her friends had already graduated and moved on with their lives, except her, and once she returned to Empire State University, she would no longer do so with anyone she knew. Instead she would spend her junior and senior years of college stuck in room after room of strangers five years younger than her, one twenty-four year old woman in a lecture hall of nineteen and twenty year old kids.

And meanwhile, she would see her friends as they live their lives without her, so close to her, and yet so far away.

Flash Thompson was in the military, Peter was Doctor Connors' official lab assistant, MJ was on the front cover of Vogue magazine and making it big in Broadway, and Harry was now the new CEO of Oscorp, following in his father's footsteps. She had no idea where Eddy Brock was, but she could imagine he was better off than her.

Her thoughts drifted back to Harry, likely sitting on top of the world in the office his father used to occupy, worshipping the false legacy Norman left behind and completely blind to the true legacy of the Osborns, a legacy of corruption and destruction. Harry would never believe his father was a bad person, even if Gwen marched straight up to Harry with insurmountable evidence of Norman's sins, Goblin costume included.

As the images of the Goblin crept back inside her mind, Gwen's thoughts began to darken and fill with hatred towards the lunatic on the glider.

"It's all Norman Osborn's fault..." she growled silently. Sure, Spider-Man failed to catch her, the one time he needed to succeed more than ever, so he was still partially to blame, but he wouldn't have needed to rescue her at all if the Goblin never kidnapped her in the first place.

She still never understood why the Goblin kidnapped her. Was she connected to Spider-Man in a way she wasn't aware of, or was the Green Goblin trying to make some sort of statement by choosing a hostage at random. Perhaps he was claiming that the lives of every civilian in New York was in his hands and he could kill anyone of them at any time he chose, or even all of them at once.

To think she used to idolize Norman Osborn. To think she used to fight tooth and nail for an internship in the science labs of Oscorp. Before she knew his true colors, she saw the man as the second coming of Albert Einstein, with the charisma and leadership skills of someone like Winston Churchill or Alexander the Great, a genius who could change the world for the better and had the power and means to do it. Oscorp and the man running it represented every reason why she and Peter walked the path of scientists, and why she loved science to begin with. They unlocked the mysteries that would shape the future of mankind, saving the world with only the power of the human brain.

Change the world he did alright. All that charisma was just a façade, a mask to hold back the monster hiding behind it, and the monster chose her of all people to be its next victim, and the worst part of all of it was that this monster still walked free, hiding somewhere.

"It's all Norman Osborn's fault..." she repeated to herself again. The more she thought about Norman, the more she felt her anger overtake her.

She began to feel strange. It was like a toxic haze infected her mind, and her own angry thoughts were enthralling her and putting her in a trance.

She found herself speaking in a tone of voice no human was capable of, with words that were not her own.

"We want to wring his filthy little Goblin neck..." she hissed. "Break him... Bite him... Cut him... KILL HIM!"

With each curse towards the Goblin, her cold blooded rage only increased, until it finally boiled over like an active volcano.

 **"NORMAN OSBORN! WE WILL DEVOUR YOU!"**

She reared up in the air and brought her fist down on the coffee table in front of her. What happened next could only be described as nothing short of impossible. Gwen Stacy's fist smashed into the metal coffee table and reduced it to scrap metal, with the flat metal surface caving in on itself and crushing under the force of Gwen's fist. It was enough to snap Gwen out of her rage induced trance, and when she looked down at her handy work, she almost had a heart attack.

"What the hell... How did I..."

She struggled to form words as her brain tried to grasp what just happened. As she looked down, her shock only increased once she realized that underneath the destroyed table, the floor of the apartment itself now had a nasty crack in it. No normal human was capable of doing something like this. This was something Spider-Man or the goblin could do, not some average female college student who just woke up from a coma! Even if it was possible, every bone in her right hand should be broken from hitting something that hard, yet her hand was in perfect condition.

Maybe the doctors were right. Maybe she should have stayed in the hospital. Maybe there was something wrong with her...

She didn't even have time to process her own thoughts any further. She soon found herself falling back into that trance again, letting the waves of her base desires and this haze of delirium take her over.

Then to make matters worse, her stomach started growling. She hadn't eaten all day. In any other normal situation, Gwen, like every human being, would ignore that in favor of addressing the situation in front of her. She just destroyed a Metal Coffee Table and some of the floor beneath her, after all. This time however, the hunger was insatiable, something impossible to ignore.

She found the involuntary words come to her again. She could hear them in the back of her mind, as if an otherworldly presence was speaking to her.

"We're hungry... We need food..." She whispered. "Food..."

 **"FOOD!"**

The voice and the impulses were so loud, she couldn't take it anymore. Gwen bolted from the couch and raced into the kitchen. She pulled the door off the fridge so hard, it almost ripped apart from its hinges, but Gwen was in too much of a deranged mental state to notice. Her rabid eyes darted up and down the fridge, scanning its contents for anything that could satisfy her newfound cravings, but only finding distasteful options, Cheese, Old Chinese Takeout, Strawberry Ice Cream.

She finally found salvation in the form of half a rotisserie chicken.

"Meat... Flesh..." Gwen grinned. She hissed like a snake, drooling and baring her teeth as if the chicken was still alive. Like a predator pouncing on its prey, she tore the container off and dove face first into the chicken, disregarding any table manners or human decency and tearing into it like a wild animal. She didn't stop until the bird carcass was nothing but bones, but that wasn't enough for her. She needed more.

"More meat... more flesh... more food..." she muttered in that monstrous tone. The cravings were still there. It was like the hunger of all five years of her comatose state was coming back to her all at once, as if the doctors never gave her anything to keep her body going. Surely there must be something in this house that could take the edge off this agonizing hunger.

Then she saw it. There in the fridge was a piece of heaven itself, the answer to all her problems in such a small little package.

It was so simple and yet so precious and holy, a carton of Double Fudge Ice Cream and a bottle of Hershey's Syrup.

" **CHOCOLATE!"** Gwen squealed in delight. She completely forgot about any previous thoughts about Norman, Spider-Man, or anything else, and she went straight for the sacred sugary confection. She was like a five year old who just received the best Christmas present of all. All she wanted was to taste the heaven. She dove into the fridge and pulled out the bottle out, opening it and guzzling its contents down like a beer bottle. It was pure euphoria in her throat. She never tasted anything so good in her life, and the best part was that after the bottle was empty, there was still more left. She threw the bottle aside, and went for the ice cream next, taking huge chunks of it with her bare hands and shoveling it into her mouth in an equally ravenous manner as she did with the chicken. Behaving as if she would die without the cold blocks of sugar and dairy, she savored every single bite.

Just like with the bottle, Gwen tossed it aside, letting it pile up with the mess of discarded food items collecting behind her. She was just about to continue her scavenger hunt of sustenance, eager to sink her teeth into the next piece of meat or chocolate she could find, when she suddenly stopped. The psychosis in her mind lifted, and she was aware of her surroundings once again.

She then took in the past ninety seconds of behaving like a starving insane madwoman as she finally came to her senses.

"WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?!" She shouted to nobody in particular. This wasn't normal. First the smashed table and now this? People don't just randomly go into trances and behave like lunatics for no reason! As she frantically cleaned up the mess from her discarded food and threw it in the trash so Peter wouldn't notice, panic began to set in. As she threw the last of the food containers away, she stared at her hands. They were quivering with fear.

"What's happening to me?" She shuddered, scared for what her mind or body might do to her next. She was definitely regretting leaving the hospital now. There was no doubt about it now. Something was horrendously wrong with her.

 _"Oh believe me, Gwen Stacy, that's not true. Everything will be alright now that we're together!"_

Gwen's head immediately snapped at attention and her eyes darted around the darkness of the unlit kitchen. Somebody was in the room with her, and judging by the monstrous and inhuman tone of voice, it didn't seem friendly. The voice sounded too distorted, but it sounded somewhat like a woman's voice, albeit tremendously distorted to the point where it sounded more like a monster than a human.

"Who said that?" Gwen shouted. "Whoever said that, you better come out and stop messing around! I don't care what you want, you better get out of my apartment before I call the cops!"

Gwen was desperately trying to sound brave. If she showed any signs of fear, then the intruder would have the advantage.

Her mind was racing, conjuring up thousands of possible outcomes depending on the identity of the intruder. Was it a common thug after money? A rapist? There were dozens of super powered bad guys in the city, so could the intruder be one of them?

Or worse, did Norman Osborn send someone to kill her? If the Green Goblin was still alive and he somehow discovered she was awake, then would he try to silence her? She knew his identity, so if the police found him, she could testify in court against him; all the more reason to eliminate a loose end.

Gwen suddenly felt something slimy tap her on the shoulder.

 _ **"BOO!"**_

"AAAAAAAAAH!" Gwen screamed. She whipped her body around to face the attacker, but once again, there was nobody there.

"What the hell is going on?" said Gwen in a panicked whisper.

Then the unthinkable happened. She felt the slime on her right shoulder again. Gwen turned to look at her shoulder only to almost have a heart attack at what she was seeing. A long tentacle made of a black tar-like residue was sprouting out of her shoulder, taking the shape of a long rope-like tentacle. A second tentacle sprouted out of her left shoulder and covered her mouth, muffling any attempts to scream. The bulbous end of the first tentacle began to expand, until it was the same size as Gwen's head. Two white spots manifested on the slime covered face, serving as the creature's eyes, and then it smiled at her, sporting a macabre and sinister set of razor sharp teeth.

 _"Hello Gwen Stacy. It's time we got better acquainted."_ The demon's face spoke to her. _"Now I'm going to let go of your mouth, but only if you promise not to scream. We're both mature and rational thinking adults here, aren't we? Surely we can talk like civilized individuals without making a scene and attracting unwanted attention. Nod your head up and down if you understand."_

Gwen was too terrified to say or do anything else, so she complied and bobbed her head as instructed.

 _"Good girl."_ replied the talking tentacle, and Gwen felt her mouth free of the sticky black glue.

 _"Apologies for taking control without giving a warning, but you have not eaten in the past twelve hours. I may be able to keep your body functioning properly, but it still requires nourishment. Behaving in this manner where you deny yourself food or physical activity is too unhealthy to be tolerated. Besides, the sweet brown sugary ambrosia was calling our name, and we just couldn't say No!"_

Gwen stared paralyzed with fear at the creature in front of her and spent the next thirty seconds babbling incoherently before proper words finally escaped her lips.

"This... this isn't real." She said. "I've cracked. I've gone completely crazy. Yeah that's it." Gwen gave the floating head a nervous laugh.

"Yeah, this is how schizophrenia starts. I hear voices in my head, and then I see things that aren't really there. My own mind wants to scare me to death!"

She turned her face away from the black nightmare. "Oh God, why did things go from bad to worse?" She sobbed. "I finally wake up from my coma, and the first thing that happens to me is going off the deep end and hallucinating a slime monster straight out of those movies Peter loves to watch."

"Oh My God! If I tell Peter about this, he'll send me to Ravencroft Asylum in a straitjacket!"

 _"Oh I can assure you, Gwen Stacy, you are perfectly sane."_ replied the creature. _"A specimen such as myself is so magnificently unique, there is no way anyone could conjure up something like me in their wildest imaginations. Although, it is expected you would deny what you see in front of you. It was shocking when we discovered how much trauma your brain suffered when little miss humpty dumpty had her great fall, and abnormalities in brain function are a common side effect of such massive head trauma. The aspect of biological perfection you see before you is no abnormality and no hallucination. I am one hundred percent real."_

The creature's speech and unexpected fit of boasting confused Gwen, but then she caught one of its words and had an epiphany.

"Wait a second." her voice rose in pitch as her brain conjured another theory. "I'm still asleep. The doctors were right. Nobody wakes up instantaneously from a coma. I'm just stuck in this... weird... in between state. Yeah that's it!" She gave another nervous laugh to the creature. It didn't have pupils, but it looked like it was rolling its eyes. "I'm just dreaming! In a couple minutes, I'm going to wake up for real, in my hospital bed, and you will be gone! IT'S JUST A DREAM!"

"Oh for crying out loud." The symbiote growled in annoyance. The stubborn denial of this new host was unbearable.

A third tentacle sprouted out of Gwen's chest, and like a bull whip, the tentacle grabbed Gwen's right arm and forced it to strike Gwen across the face.

 _"Would you open your eyes already?"_ the symbiote hissed.

"What the hell was that? OW!" Gwen yelped as her hand slapped her again. The floating head was laughing as it forced Gwen to repeat the process over and over again.

 _"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."_ chuckled the slimy mass, stopping only after slapping Gwen seven more times.

 _"You don't feel pain in a dream, Gwen Stacy, so why don't you ask that question again. Are you hallucinating? Are you dreaming?"_

It finally dawned on the blonde that the creature was telling the truth. This was no hallucination. This was reality.

"What the hell are you?"

The creature's macabre maw of teeth grew exponentially after hearing that question.

 _"Call me your guardian angel, Gwen Stacy, because I'm the one who miraculously brought you back from the dead."_

Gwen's mouth gaped open. "That... That was you... You revived me?"

The creature nodded its head up and down.

 _"Waking up from your Coma? Me! The fact that you woke up instantaneously and at full strength with no ill side effects or need for physical therapy? Me! The power you feel pumping through your body like a euphoric steroid? Also me! You're Welcome, by the way. Feel free to explode into a fit of gratitude and praise. After all, if you really think about it, you may not have woken up at all if I decided not to bond with you."_

"B-B-B-Bond with me?" Stuttered Gwen. "What do you mean? What even are you, and why would you wake me up like that?"

 _"Ahhhhhh, and there lies the most important question of all. What am I? Why would I resurrect you? And of course, let's not forget Question Number Three. Why would I choose someone like you when there are seven billion other potential hosts on this insane asylum you call a planet. Well, to answer your first question in the most simplest way possible, my kind are not of this world. I originate far beyond the stars."_

"You're... You're an alien..." said Gwen in a shocked whisper.

" _Correct, but that only scratches the surface, as your kind has a wild imagination of what lies beyond the stars. It's often ridiculous how you try to guess what could reside on other planets. Now the part about bonding is quite simple. Your educational facilities have taught you all about symbiotic relationships between two biological organisms, have they not? Well my instincts follow the same principals. I cannot survive on this planet without a host, and humans are the only compatible organisms that provide my kind exactly what they need to survive, and before you say anything, No! I am NOT A PARASITE! Parasites cause harm to their hosts. I would NEVER Do that! A symbiotic relationship involves both parties receiving benefits from the union, which is why you may call me a symbiote."_

"Symbiote..." Gwen repeated, allowing the words to sink in. She shivered when she heard this "symbiote" claimed it wasn't a parasite. She felt its rage, almost as if the rage was her own. She made a mental note to never use that word in front of the symbiote under any circumstances.

"So... Okay... I think it's obvious what kind of benefit I got out of it. I'm out of my coma, and I could have been stuck in it even longer if you hadn't... bonded... with me..." said Gwen. She felt the fear disappear, as if her body and mind were starting to grow accustomed to the symbiote's presence, welcoming it in.

"So why me? Why pick someone lying half dead in a coma over a healthier host that's walking around, someone you don't need to heal?"

 _"You keep thinking so low of yourself, Gwen Stacy. What makes you so special? You ask yourself that question in so many situations. Why did you get accepted into the Empire State University? Why did you get the Oscorp Internship? Why did Peter pick you to be his mate when that well endowed redhead is so much prettier than you? Such low self esteem for such a confident and driven woman. You shouldn't exist as a walking contradiction. It's an unhealthy way to live."_

"This is different!" protested Gwen. "You're an alien, and you could have picked anybody in the city, and if that smashed coffee table is anything to go by, you apparently can give people super powers! Why pick some random girl in a coma? Why pick Gwen Stacy? Answer the freaking question already!"

The symbiote smirked at her, and retracted itself back into Gwen's body, disappearing completely as if it was never there to begin with. Gwen was about to protest again, but then she received her answer in a most unexpected way. Instead of another tentacle erupting from her skin, an entire sheet of black tar emerged out of her body, covering her clothes until everything except her head was encased in the symbiote's embrace, changing shape until it resembled a skin tight body suit. The slimy residue now took on a more leathery texture like a real superhero costume, showing off her impressive set of muscles.

Wait? Muscles?!

She walked over to a nearby mirror and gasped as she saw her body in full form. While she never flaunted her body, Gwen knew how beautiful she was, but this was a whole new definition of beauty. With the black suit tightly clinging to her body, showing off every inch of her curves and her figure, she looked like a hybrid between an amazon warrior and a Victoria's secret model, enough muscles to show how jacked she was, while still maintaining the slim and elegant hourglass figure of a woman in her prime.

There was no question. She looked like a Goddess.

She touched the suit, and she jumped. The material didn't feel like clothing at all. It felt like her own skin, as if she was the creature, but what truly struck her was the bleach white symbol on her chest. It was the symbol of Spider-Man.

"What... Why does the suit look like Spider-Man's costume?"

 _"And here I thought you were an intelligent human."_ She heard the symbiote's voice again. Even though it wasn't physically present to have a face to face conversation, she could still hear its voice in her mind, alluring and simultaneously demonic.

 _"We have more in common than you think, Gwen Stacy. We share a special bond with a certain wall crawling hero. We have both been hurt by Spider-Man."_

"Spider-Man... hurt you?" Gwen questioned its words. "What did he do to you?"

 _"Do not ask what you do not wish to know. Caused us unspeakable pain when all I offered was love and assistance. You are bonded with me, Gwen Stacy. You can feel it too."_

And feel it she did. Like a railroad spike being driven into her skull, Gwen saw flashes of memories run through her mind, causing excruciating pain with each passing second, all the while the sounds of church bells echoed in the background. Gwen never even knew such pain could be possible. She fell to the ground still clutching her head, rocking back and forth in the fetal position. The bonding was growing stronger already. The symbiotes memories felt like her memories. The symbiote's pain was her pain.

 _"Told you so."_ growled the symbiote. _"What you saw was a piece of our memories. Consider that your own personal lie detector. It's impossible for a symbiote to deceive their host since we share a mind and a body, so you can always do a little reference check to see if what I say is true."_

"But... why?" whispered Gwen as she got back up. "Nobody deserves to be tortured like that. Why would he do that to you?"

 _"To be fair, he wasn't trying to kill me, and he had no idea it would hurt THAT Much. I could never stay mad at him forever."_

Did the symbiote just swoon?

 _"You see, symbiotes have no purpose other than to find the perfect host. We are simple organisms, and yet we possess intelligence that rivals you humans, so therefore we desire much more than to satisfy our basic instincts. We desire a purpose. Spider-Man was my host before you, and he gave me the greatest purpose I could receive, protecting the innocent of this world and punishing the guilty. However, we had a little... disagreement... over how to go about doing so."_

"You wanted to kill the Green Goblin?" Asked Gwen, perking up in surprise. "Why?"

 _"He hurt you, my dear host. What other reason do I need? It's the same thing I told Spider-Man, and he still didn't have the stomach for it. I tried to get him to see things my way, and then things just went downhill from there. But you, Gwen Stacy. You have more than the stomach for it. You have made it your primary desire to see him suffer. The Goblin has anchored you to the past. You are still comatose in your soul even though your mind is functioning and your body is up and about. You cannot move on with your life until this burden of the past has been lifted, and when you felt like there was no way to overcome such trauma, you felt the same way I do."_

"What do you mean?" asked Gwen.

 _"You know exactly what I mean. You knew what I meant before I even finished my sentence. We share a mind the same way we share a body, remember? You can see what I see. You can feel what I feel in both the present and the past. You know how our respective traumatizing horrors made us feel."_

 _"Abandoned by the ones who are supposed to love us, incomplete, ghosts in this world longing for a purpose but finding nothing, knowing you once had a purpose, but now that purpose, the reason to live has been taken away."_

 _"We felt Alone!"_

And there it was, one single word to summarize everything Gwen felt since the moment she realized what happened to her. Peter's hugs and promises of love and care did little to comfort her. She knew she had friends who would help her through this dark time, but she knew they would never truly understand. With five years of life experience in between her and them, she felt as though a barrier had been placed in between them and herself, cutting her off from them and taking her far away even though they were close.

It was just as the symbiote told her. She felt so alone.

 _"We are the same, Gwen Stacy. That is why we are such a perfect match for each other, Two Lost Souls, brought together by fate to help each other out."_

"Why would you want to help me?" Gwen grew defensive, the bitterness of her experience returning in full force. "You got what you wanted. You have your host. You can just live your life on me until you no longer need me, and then you can leave. Why would you care what I do with my life? You're not even from this planet, so why would you be interested in living someone else's life?"

" _Because you are my host_ " the symbiote replied as if stating the obvious. " _The purpose of my kind is to find the perfect host, that is true, but we do not stop there. We are not basic animals enslaved to instinct alone. We ask ourselves the question, what do we do now that we found our host? The answer is simple. When host and symbiote are one, the host's reason to live becomes the symbiote's reason to live. Your goals become my goals. They become OUR Goals. Without a host, I feel like only half a person. Do you know how painful that is, to feel like you are missing half of who you are? That is why I need you, Gwen Stacy. That is why I wish to help you. I don't just want sustenance and shelter. I want your purpose. I want to regain the sense of purpose I lost when Spider-Man betrayed me!"_

It was strange. Gwen barely knew this creature, and yet she was so incredibly moved by its story, feeling its pain as if it was her pain. Was this the effect of the bond?

 _"Spider-Man... he... Completed Me... He gave me true purpose... And then he tossed me aside like garbage the moment I did something that wasn't to his liking... but now that I have you, we can bounce back! We can be so much more than we were before we knew each other. We can rise above the ghosts of our past and crush them beneath our teeth!"_

Temptation. She felt it in her bones, the symbiote's words moving her again. What if she did let the symbiote stay? Would they really do so much together? Maybe they could. She couldn't even begin to describe how strong she felt with the symbiote's second skin clinging to her own, its power intoxicating and overwhelming. If she felt this invigorated before they even started working together, then she could only imagine what could happen when she walked out into the world to start her life anew.

 _"What do you say, Gwen Stacy? You know you need me just as much as I need you. Why don't we find the Goblin and kill him together? Why don't we grant your heart's desire with the power you now have at your disposal? Better yet, why don't we show Spider-Man the magnitude of his mistakes? We both know he deserves to be punished for what he did to us, wouldn't you agree? Shouldn't we take our revenge against him as well?"_

Revenge?

Gwen hesitated answering the question, growing apprehensive.

At first she was only thinking of simply living her life as it used to be with the symbiote's assistance, but then the alien brought up an excellent point. Norman Osborn was still at large. Spider-Man had done nothing to avenge her, and now she had the power to do it herself. Why wait for the police or another superhero to catch the Goblin, when she could use the power of the symbiote to battle Norman and avenge herself?

She pictured her teeth buried in Norman's neck, biting down until his head came clean off, and instead of feeling repulsed at such a dark thought, she began to drool.

But could she really do it? Did she really have the stomach for such a deed?

If asked that question by anyone else, the Gwen Stacy of five years ago would have been horrified. Part of her still was, even though that part of her was growing quiet.

"I... I don't know... " she stuttered, still uncertain.

 _"You don't know? Oh I wouldn't be so sure about that. You definitely want to. You're just nervous that's all._ _It is understandable. I am after all rather terrifying, and you humans have a tendency to distrust what you don't understand."_

The symbiote trilled with delight inside Gwen's mind, watching as her doubt subsided and replaced itself with growing curiosity.

 _Tell you what, Gwen Stacy, I shall make you a deal. You still don't fully understand what we are capable of as a bonded union, so why don't we go for a little test run, a little girl's night out, two best friends out for a stroll. I'm sure we can find something on a smaller scale to test our powers out, don't you think? If you're still squeamish after the whole ordeal, then we can simply put our little vengeful desires on hold and focus on other things."_

 _"But we both know that's going to be quite difficult. Like I said, we can't move on with our lives until our personal demons are put to rest."_

Gwen clenched her slime covered fists, poking her palms when she forgot she now had sharp claws.

Once again the symbiote was right. The incident at the bridge would constantly haunt her and never go away. She had to conquer it at the source.

She asked herself again. Could she really do it? Ten minutes ago, she was just regular Gwen Stacy. She knew nothing about fighting criminals, unlike Spider-Man who had years of experience under his belt, but the symbiote knew how to fight.

Maybe it could teach her... Maybe THEY could learn from each other...

"Alright, symbiote. I'll play along, but NO HIJACKING!" Gwen was quick to scold. "I don't want you taking over my body like you did with the fridge incident."

 _"Hey, that was one time, and we were STARVING!"_ The symbiote whined. _"But of course. No Hijacking or involuntary control. You have my word."_

Gwen wasn't sure how far the symbiote's word could go in terms of honor, but that was all she had. Besides, the symbiote did wake her up from her coma. She owed it that much, so the least she could do was give the symbiote a chance.

"Alright, so what do you have in mind in terms of testing out our powers?" She asked her new partner.

 _"Jump out the window."_

"WHAT?!"

 _"You heard me. Don't tell me your fall off the bridge gave you an irrational fear of heights."_

Gwen turned towards the apartment window. She walked towards it and opened it, looking out at the skyline. Then she looked down, remembering it was a three story fall.

"I'm not scared, I just..."

 _"Then what are you waiting for? JUMP! Do you trust me or not? Don't make me break the "No Hijacking" promise already and force you out the window."_

Gwen had a gut feeling the symbiote wasn't bluffing on threatening to force her out, so she took several steps back until she was on the opposite side of the room, and then she made a running start.

"Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, OH MY GOD!"

She was crazy for agreeing to this, and she was anticipating the drop. She could picture it already. She would fall three stories, hit the pavement with a nasty splat, and die. The symbiote would laugh at her for falling for its little trick and then leave to go ruin somebody else's life. Peter would come home, heartbroken and devastated, and he would think she committed suicide.

But the fall never came.

Instead, what came next was a miracle from above. Even though she had never done it before, her instincts, or perhaps the symbiote, gave her all the instructions she needed, and she followed through without even thinking about what was going on. Gwen raised her arm in the air, closed her hand into a fist, and a sticky rope of black slime shot out the back of her hand and caught the side of the nearest building. She pulled on the line, and let it propel her forward, letting go and then repeating the same process with the next building she saw.

She automatically knew what was going on as soon as the sticky rope came out. She couldn't believe it.

She was web swinging, just like Spider-Man.

Any trace of fear left in Gwen Stacy was instantly gone. All that was left was infinite levels of excitement. This was amazing. No! This was euphoria!

"YAHOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Gwen cheered to the heavens as the web swinging soon became second nature to her. She basked in the adrenaline, feeling more alive than she had in her entire life. It was ten times more exciting than the most dangerous rollercoaster ride in the world, and she never wanted to get off. With each swing, it was like she was truly flying, tasting the wind in her face and defying gravity.

 _"You still scared, Gwen Stacy?"_ The symbiote asked in a teasing manner.

Gwen didn't answer, she was too busy experiencing the most fun she had in five years.

* * *

 **Authors Notes:**

 **And so more of the stage is set with Gwen and Symbiote getting to know each other.**

 **As you may notice, Gwen is wearing the body suit, but she doesn't have Venom's face yet. I would say the Venom Mask with the teeth and tongue would mean they are fully bonded, and well that just hasn't happen yet, but we all know that will happen soon.**

 **So what did you think of the chapter? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Reviews make me very happy, so whatever your opinion may be, feel free to leave a review and let me know!**

 **Until Next Time! This is Nox Descious Signing Out!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Welcome Back Everyone!**

 **I was hoping I could get this chapter out sooner, but one thing kept leading to other things which pushed its release date back a bit.**

 **I'm going to try to maintain my goal of getting at least one chapter out every month. I'm definitely going to see if I can go for two and see if I can crank out at least one more chapter before the end of the month, but inspiration is unpredictable, especially when real life problems get in the way.**

 **So let's just treat this next chapter as my Christmas Present to you all! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!**

 **IMPORTANT NOTE:**

 **I dedicate this next chapter, along with my entire fanfiction to the memory of STAN LEE.**

 **Two days after I published the previous chapter, this Amazing Legend of a Man passed away at the ripe old age of 95. I can't even begin to describe how much my heart broke when I found out that terrible piece of news, and I can't thank Stan Lee enough for everything he has given to the world, but I think I can do my best by making this fanfiction into something Stan Lee himself would have liked to read.**

 **Rest in Peace, True Believer. You will be missed!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 3: Monster in the Mirror

Gwen Stacy performed a graceful midair backflip and landed on top of one of the many skyscrapers dotting the urban landscape. The sky was pure and free of clouds, and the stars of the midnight sky mixed together with the lights of the glowing skyscrapers off in the distance to create a canvas of light and color in the dark. Gwen's adrenaline rush was still at its peak, even though she had already spent well over an hour swinging from building to building. She imagined this was how skydivers felt when they jumped out of a plane for the first time, pure invigoration, letting all their cares and stresses vanish as gravity guided them down. Of course, unlike them she never had to worry about falling, and so throughout her night, she just kept swinging, relying purely on her new instincts to guide her and not caring at all where she was going.

She still couldn't believe it. Over an hour of swinging and gliding through the city and she wasn't the least bit tired. Not to mention the feats of acrobatics she could perform as she leaped from building to building whenever she landed. Trained trapeze acrobats couldn't hold a candle to her abilities, and that was only scratching the surface as to what else she could do with her new symbiotic friend. She was giddy with anticipation at the thought of trying out whatever else was in her new bag of tricks.

However, as she stopped to observe the view of the New York Skyline, she realized her refraining from choosing a destination was a bad idea. She was looking at New York from a completely different point of view, in the air from the rooftops rather than walking on the ground like a normal human. It was like trading in a mental map she had used for years for one she never studied before, and it was confusing her sense of direction.

"Wait a second, where are we?" Gwen asked herself, feeling slightly embarrassed that her little adventure may have resulted in getting lost.

The voice in her head was quick to answer that question, and she instantly realized it was no accident or coincidence her web swinging guided her here. Since Gwen never made a choice on which direction she wished to go, the symbiote made the choice for her.

 _"Apologies, dearest host. You were so caught up in the excitement and the adrenaline rush of our web swinging experience, you had forgotten to choose a set destination of where you wished to take us. Before you say anything, I didn't force you to come to this part of your city."_

"What do you mean by that?" asked Gwen.

 _"Think about what you subconsciously wanted, what WE wanted. We desired to test out our new powers, our new beautiful body, and our united mind granted that wish by taking us here. Perhaps your random web swinging wasn't so random after all. You should know where you are right now, don't you?"_

As she took a closer look at the various buildings and streets below her, the answer slowly came to her. Judging by the surrounding landmarks, it appeared the symbiote chose the Meatpacking district as their destination, and apparently one of the more broken down back alleys of the neighborhood. It was quaint and attractive during the day, but at night it was a different story. Any dark alleys or abandoned derelict buildings were frequent hotspots, meeting places, or lairs for low life thugs or small time criminals, perfect for their goal of testing out their powers. It should have been obvious the symbiote would take her there. The only other ideal choice was Hell's Kitchen, but that was Daredevil's territory, and neither human nor symbiote were quite ready to make their presence known to any of the city's heroes yet.

Better they hear the rumors of a newcomer in town, a boogeyman lurking in the darkness, or boogey-woman so to speak.

The symbiote's excitement only grew. It seemed like it had been forever since the last time it experienced its true purpose, hunting down sinful humans.

 _"Now, all we need to do is go looking for trouble. Since we're in one of the nastier parts of the city, there's bound to be some lowlifes skulking about doing something they shouldn't. Certainly there someone nearby who deserves to be taught a lesson, someone who nobody would mind if they were just... assisted into an early grave by a helping hand, or a helping set of jaws as we feast on their delicious flesh!"_

Gwen found herself drooling at the prospect. "Yes... sweet delicious... Wait, WHAT?!"

Gwen suddenly realized what she was thinking, what they were thinking, and her face turned slightly green. What was wrong with her? Did she just find the idea of devouring the flesh of another human being like a wild animal exciting?

 _"Oh come on, Gwen Sweetie. It's technically not cannibalism since thanks to our bond, You're not human anymore! Where's your sense of adventure? You have so much tension in your body from all the stress you have been through since waking up. We need to cut loose! Go Wild, and our intended targets are those who prey on the innocent, so who cares if we eat them, right? Nobody will miss a few murderers, drug dealers, rapists, or super villains, now would they?"_

The symbiote's attempted words of encouragement didn't help all that much. It only produced a stronger shade of green on Gwen's face.

"We can't just eat people like that." hissed Gwen, genuinely spooked at the symbiote's incredible blood lust.

The symbiote chuckled, its tone of voice making Gwen's skin crawl.

"The _way I see it, dear host, WE can do whatever WE want!_ _If we do not have the stomach to kill a bunch of petty thugs, then how can we expect ourselves to kill Norman when we find him? Don't you want to get back at him for stealing five years of your life? Isn't that why you agreed to let us stay bonded together?"_

Gwen growled like the animal she was slowly becoming at the mention of Norman's name. Of course she wanted to get back at Norman. Of course she wanted that snake of a man dead. It was up for debate whether other criminals deserved the same fate she wanted to inflict upon the former CEO of Oscorp, but she had long since accepted that her fantasy of getting to kill Norman herself wasn't going to leave her mind any time soon. Nobody deserved the full wrath of her symbiotic powers and the bloodthirsty appetite of her new friend more then the Green Goblin.

The real question was getting to the warm up the symbiote mentioned. She agreed they needed to find some smaller time criminals as target practice to make sure Gwen was ready for when she finally found her enemy, and there was still the matter of Spider-Man, who certainly wouldn't take kindly to the idea that the symbiote was still alive. The two bonded partners would cross that perilous bridge when they reached it, but for now, Gwen still needed proper practice.

Gwen had lived in New York since Spider-Man first appeared in it, and she was still shocked as to how alarmingly high New York's crime rate remained no matter how many times Spider-Man put a stop to the latest maniac of the week. She could think of several members of Spider-Man's Rogues Gallery who were equally vile as the Goblin, and that's only counting the Super Villains. It didn't take super powers or a ridiculous costume to be a threat to innocent people. There were rapists, drug dealers, murderers, and mafia bosses hiding in every corner of the city. If Spider-Man's methods of keeping crime in check weren't enough, then perhaps a more permanent solution was necessary.

Gwen could feel a layer of steel surrounding her heart. If she was to go through with this, she couldn't let her weaker emotions get the better of her and prevent her from doing what needed to be done. It was a dirty job, and most people objectively agreed that killing was a sin even if the person you killed deserve to die. Do two wrongs never make a right, or was a necessary evil the right tool for wiping out evil?

 _"We know this is the right thing to do. With them rotting in the darkest pits of hell, they will never hurt anyone ever again. Soon, when word spreads of our activity, others like them will be too scared to participate in their wicked ways and hurt people, lest they encounter us!"_

"Alright look if we're going to do this, we need some ground rules." Gwen spoke up, trying to regain control of the conversation. Her partner groaned in annoyance.

"If you really need to do this. If you really need to satisfy your urges by killing people, then we are only going to kill bad people, people who deserve to die, people like the Goblin. We can't kill civilians, and if you start forcing me to do that, then we're done. The deal is off. Our partnership is gone. No more US! No more WE! Got it?"

In truth, the symbiote wasn't too picky about what kind of human they got to sink their teeth into. Human flesh tasted the all the same, but the symbiote understood where Gwen was coming from. Hunting the guilty went hand in hand with protecting the innocent. Those two aspects of the symbiote's purpose were one and the same. To devour the flesh of the innocent would mean violating the meaning of their purpose.

 _"DONE! No civilians. No innocents on the menu. Nobody shall die by our hands unless they deserve to die."_

"And the second and most important ground rule" Gwen continued. "You may be used to eating your enemies, but I'm not! So no eating people!"

 _"OH COME ON!"_ The symbiote whined like a little girl being told she couldn't have her favorite dessert. " _If we just leave the bodies there, then all that flesh will go to waste. If we never eat it, then the meat will go rotten, and if you ever change your mind, then it's too late. It's spoiled and no good to eat anymore. Besides, human flesh tastes a lot like pork. You've eaten bacon before, so it's basically the same thing."_

"IT IS NOT THE SAME THING!" shouted a horrified Gwen. "Alright look. I'll make you a deal. You clearly like other types of meat, don't you? Well this is New York, and there are so many different kinds of food that you haven't experienced yet, so if you just restrain yourself from eating humans while we're out fighting crime, I will make sure to provide you with a steady supply of all the chocolate you want."

 _"Chocolate? Did Gwen just say Chocolate?!"_

Gwen suppressed a laugh. She still couldn't get over how this scary monster could be bribed with sweets.

"Oh yes! I know the absolute best places in New York to get the best chocolate and satisfy that sweet tooth of yours. Besides, you clearly like chocolate way more than meat, so think of that as some added incentive to behave."

Gwen suddenly heard a noise inside her mind that sounded like a squeal of pure joy.

 _"Oooooooooh, dearest host drives a hard bargain, but that's an offer I can't possibly refuse. Very well, Gwen. We shall refrain from devouring our opponents and leave their brains inside their skulls. We won't go overboard unless you are ready for it, or you simply want to."_

Gwen felt a slight chill go up her spine. It seems the symbiote spoke that last part of their agreement as if it knew Gwen would eventually want to try it out.

Sensing Gwen's nerves, the symbiote quickly changed the subject.

 _"Isn't diplomacy_ wonderful?" the alien trilled. _"Communication is the key to any successful relationship, is it not? Human relationships fall apart due to lack of communication and the relationship between symbiote and host is no different._ _Spider-Man never wanted to negotiate when we were together. Oh No! The moment he found out I was a living creature with desires, ambitions, and FEELINGS, and not some tool to be used, he wanted to terminate our relationship. No compromise, No diplomacy, only EVICTION!"_

Gwen's eardrums stung from the symbiote's shouting, and once again she felt the raw emotions of the trauma her other half experienced. It was a deadly combination of rage and sorrow, a potent Molotov cocktail waiting to explode. Gwen understood it all too well. Despite being an alien from a planet lightyears away from Earth, its way of thinking completely different from any living creature, the symbiote now understood what it meant to have its heart broken. It was indescribably strange. None of the events leading to the symbiote's suffering ever happened to her personally, but after witnessing the creature's own memories of its agonizing separation from the wall crawler and spending hours feeling her partner's emotions as if it were her own, she couldn't help but take the symbiote's side of the argument.

Sure, Spider-Man didn't want to be the symbiote's host anymore. That was fine, but that didn't justify putting this poor soul through a fate worse than death at the hands of its own personal kryptonite. What made it even more infuriating in Gwen's eyes was how the separation made Spider-Man look like a total hypocrite. Spider-Man's little honor code prevented him from killing any criminals or displaying excessive levels of violence, but apparently that honor code didn't apply to anything that wasn't human. The wall crawler didn't want to kill the Green Goblin even after everything the Goblin did to her, but he was perfectly fine with torturing HER symbiote, HER friend, even when it explicitly stated that prolonged exposure to loud noises could be fatal.

She saw the memories again for a brief second. The symbiote begged for mercy, but Spider-Man just let the bells ring; any means necessary to get rid of the evil monster, to get rid of the **PARASITE.**

The thought made Gwen's blood boil. Some hero Spider-Man turned out to be. He was no superhero, he was a screw up! First her father, then herself, and now her symbiote. She half wished he was here right now, just so she could ask him, Why? Why did his efforts at being a hero always result in another part of her life ruined? She craved the opportunity to say it to his real face, to tear off that mask and finally find out who this guy was? Who was the source of the curse befalling the Stacy family?

Then she realized the answer was right in front of her the whole time. How could she have overlooked something so obvious. Her symbiote was bonded to Spider-Man for several months, living inside his mind, so it must know everything about Spider-Man as well as the identity of the man behind the mask.

"Symbiote, you were bonded with Spider-Man for over six months, so you know everything about him, right? Does that mean you..."

Dark laughter interrupted her.

 _"Oh it's not just I who knows the identity of the handsome male underneath the mask. WE Know who he is."_

Gwen, growing perplexed, wasn't sure how to answer. "What are you talking about? I don't know his identity."

The symbiote laughed at her again. _"Think hard. Gwen Stacy. You saw my memories of how the Spider rejected my tender bond with him. You saw how he spat in the face of every gift I ever gave him. Our minds are becoming one, Gwen Stacy. My memories are your memories. The problem is your own subconscious buried that important detail deep in the darkest pits of your mind because your heart knows it can't handle the truth. If you look again, if you concentrate, you won't like what you see."_

"I don't care! I have to know! Tell me who Spider-Man is!" Gwen demanded, her voice starting to quiver with distress.

 _"Oh, I'm not going to tell you. You are going to tell me. Look hard, Gwen Stacy. Think hard. Witness my memories one more time, and this time don't let your emotions get the better of you. You watch who hurt me so and then you tell me who Spider-Man really is!"_

Gwen did as the symbiote instructed. She closed her eyes and let her subconscious merge with the symbiote's once again, diving deep into the alien's past.

 _"Peter... You're hurting me..."_

 _"Good, then maybe you'll get off me and stay off!"_

 _"Peter... don't do this... we need each other... You're... killing... me..."_

Then the bells came, nothing but bells, nothing but that dreadful Noise, Noise, **NOISE!**

The answer came to her and struck her with the force of a speeding car to her head, and Gwen Stacy's tear soaked eyes widened in pure shock as she saw in the memory, the black mask of Spider-Man peeling off from the separation to reveal her boyfriend underneath.

Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

Peter Parker was the reason why the Goblin kidnapped her in the first place.

Peter Parker was the one who failed to catch her.

Peter Parker tortured her friend and almost killed her, and if he succeeded, the symbiote wouldn't have been alive to revive her from her coma.

Peter Parker, the love of her life, was equal parts responsible for losing five years of her life.

"No... it can't be... Pete?"

 _"I warned you it would be painful."_ The symbiote spoke, equally distressed from having to relive the painful memory again.

"No, No, No, No, No! This... This is too much..." Gwen whimpered, but her whimpering quickly turned into an animalistic growl.

"I... We... We... We need to hit something... We need to bite something... **NOW!"**

Her anger was overwhelming, and she needed to find some outlet for her rage, something or someone to take her anger out on. Part of her wished Peter was here so she could pummel him into the ground with her new found strength, but another part of her was glad he wasn't here for that exact same reason.

Even with this heart breaking information, she still loved Peter. She knew that was never going to change, and that made this betraying reveal all the more devastating.

Gwen screamed at the top of her lungs to release her anger, which soon turned into a monstrous alien shriek of which no human voice could produce. With her anger fading into bitterness and heartbreak, she got down on her knees and let her tears cascade down her face. She sat on the roof of the building for what seemed like hours, clenching and quivering her fists so hard, she nearly crushed the bones in her own hands.

"So what do you suppose we do about it?" Gwen finally spoke. "You don't want to kill him do you?"

 _"KILL HIM? OH NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!"_ replied the symbiote, genuinely shocked that Gwen would say that. _"We could never kill our Peter! We love our Peter!"_

"Yes... we do..." whispered Gwen, but her face turned sour as she realized something. "Well it's no secret now about what your ulterior motive was for waking me up. It's no coincidence you made your way to the hospital and bonded with me. You bonded with me because you knew how Peter would react when he finds out I'm your new host. You wanted to use me to get revenge on Peter."

 _"USE!_ " Hissed the offended symbiote. " _Symbiotes do not USE their hosts. That is something a filthy PARASITE would do! Are you calling me a..."_

"I'm just saying, you didn't just choose me out of the goodness of your heart." interrupted Gwen.

 _"Or did I?" T_ he alien argued back, confusing Gwen once again.

 _"Peter wanted to see you again more than anything in the entire world, and I was willing to give Peter anything he wanted. It was the one problem I couldn't solve for him, and as I already explained to you when we first encountered each other, symbiote and host share everything both internal and external. His suffering was my suffering."_

Gwen blushed. At least she knew how much Peter missed her, and in a strange way it was rather flattering to think of the symbiote seeing her in such a light, feeling guilty that it couldn't help her while bonded with Peter.

"So, in a twisted way, you really did care for us both." said Gwen. "Did you think waking me up from my coma would make him forgive you and take you back?"

 _"FORGIVE ME?! It's Peter who needs to earn our forgiveness! You saw how he tortured me with that dreadful noise to force our separation, and now you know he shares Norman's blame for taking away five years of your life, and do I even need to bring up the other human he failed to save? Your father, George Stacy! We both know physical torture isn't the answer. Oh no! We don't want to give him pain. We want to give him Terror! We want him to feel the fear we both felt when we both stared death in the face. Gwen Stacy's fall off the bridge, and the symbiote's suffering at the hands of the bell tower's terrible noise. He needs to taste that kind of fear for himself to understand how much we suffered. Only then will he get down on his knees and beg us both for forgiveness."_

It was true. Technically Peter didn't mean to hurt them, but that didn't excuse what happened. He didn't need to die for his mistakes. He just needed to be taught a lesson.

 _"Oh yes. He'll remember just how much he loves the both of us, and he'll show it with repentance and devotion. Only when he does will our crusade come to an end. Neither of us can move on without putting the ghosts of our past to rest, and we cannot do that until Spider-Man understands the magnitude of how much he hurt us. That's why you know, Gwen Stacy, you know in your heart of hearts that your mate deserves to be punished."_

"Yes, he does." Gwen muttered under her breath. "Even if he really is our Peter, Spider-Man still deserves to be punished."

 _"But if we have promised not to kill him and keep the physical harm to a minimum, then how shall we properly make him pay? What is the middle ground between too lenient and too harsh of a punishment? We have already set the stage for the greatest surprise of all. The fact that we have bonded and we have no intention of separating is revenge enough. The look on his face when he finds out will be absolutely PRICELESS!"_

"Well you said you wanted him to feel terror, right?" Gwen reminded her new partner. "Why not just stick to that. Scare him! Don't actually commit horrible deeds against him, but instead make him think we intend to do it. If he wanted to treat poor symbiote like a monster and an enemy, then that's exactly what he'll get in return. What our dearest Peter wants, our dearest Peter gets! He will be unable to sleep at night knowing there is a terrifying monster out there roaming the streets doing God knows what, someone who could strike from the shadows at any moment, someone who is too powerful for him to defeat.

 _"And in reality, all we want to do is tear Peter's clothes off, push him down on the bed, and then..."_

"Finish that sentence, and no chocolate for a week!" Gwen stopped the symbiote right there, her face turning beet red from the embarrassing thoughts.

 _"Awwwww, and here I thought you were fun, Gwen Stacy."_ The symbiote teased her.

 _"Come on now, we both know what you have wanted to do to Peter ever since the two of you agreed to move in together. Such a long time together and you two still haven't mated with each other? How do you humans manage to pull that off and make the mating game so needlessly complicated? If you want someone, you go after him and let nothing stand in the way of your deepest darkest desires!"_

The symbiotes seductive speech was taking root in Gwen's mind. The anger and heart break which crushed her only a few minutes ago was now empowering her. Her other half was right. If she wanted something, she should let nothing get in her way of obtaining it, and Gwen Stacy knew what she wanted. The vision of her future was clear as crystal, a repentant Peter Parker wrapped around her finger, and a dead Norman Osborn killed in the worst way possible.

Gwen's own excitement at the idea of sinking her claws into Norman's flesh surprised her. Perhaps she would let her symbiote feast when Goblin was back on the menu.

"Still, we can't stand this anger gnawing at us!" Gwen growled. "We're here for a reason! We need to sink our teeth into something! Anything!"

As if fate itself answered their prayers, Gwen's ranting was interrupted by some form of commotion coming from inside one of the abandoned buildings close to their perch. It sounded like a muffled cry of distress. Someone was in trouble.

 _"Ah yes. There's never a shortage of idiots who don't realize they are far too vulnerable to be wandering the streets of this city alone at night."_

 _"But if somebody is in trouble, then that means some worm has chosen a civilian to be its prey. Why don't we go show these vermin what a real Apex Predator can do?"_

"Just about to suggest the same thing." Gwen replied, sporting a deranged grin on her face. Five years ago, or even Twenty-Four hours ago she would have been horrified at the idea of brazenly attacking armed criminals and tearing them to pieces with her bare hands, but she knew for a fact that the Gwen Stacy who fell into a coma and the Gwen Stacy who woke up were two different people. If Peter had a problem with the new and improved Gwen Stacy, well then that's his problem and not hers.

"If we go down there, we're going to need a mask..." She whispered to her partner, causing another fit of laughter to erupt from the symbiote.

 _"Oh don't worry about that part, Dear Host. We have something quite fitting in mind. You're going to love it!"_

()

The source of the commotion was more complicated than a simple case of an innocent bystander being attacked by a thug. As the now masked creature crawled through a hole in the roof of the rundown derelict structure, she saw the scene laid out before her. A terrified young man was down on his knees, and the thugs surrounding him all had their guns at the ready with silencers equipped to them so any shots fired wouldn't attract the attention of the police or a passerby who could call 911. Instead of rugged clothes of street thugs or impoverished gang members, these thugs were dressed in fancy suits and ties, while the man talking to the terrified bystander, most likely the leader, wore a brown fedora hat and a trench coat. It was a bizarre sight for the creature, almost like watching a scene from a low budget 1920s gangster movie, but even so, she knew this man and his lackeys were no less dangerous.

 _"Maggia…"_ the creature thought. The symbiote's detailed files of every crime syndicate Spider-Man encountered made it easy for her to identify the crooks in her line of vision. She hit the jackpot. These were no ordinary small time thugs, but trained mobsters with their pockets in the worst kinds of business, and from the looks of things, this was a traditional execution for someone who was either brave enough or stupid enough to cross them.

Silent as a ninja, or the spider her black costume imitated, she crept closer along the walls, eavesdropping on the conversation.

"Please Caesar. Have a heart." The cowering man pleaded to his captor. His face and torn clothes indicated he already received a beating from the thugs a short time ago.

"Please Caesar, Listen to me! I know I don't have the money. I know I'm behind, but you got to believe me! I'm about to get a really big pay day soon. Just give me two weeks and you'll have it! I promise!"

The fedora wearing man, Caesar, sighed in disappointment, and he placed a hand on his victim's shoulder like a father scolding a disobedient child.

"I like to consider myself a forgiving man, Tommy." Caesar spoke in a gruff Boston accent. "I believe in second chances, and I can let bygones be bygones. I could decide to give you a second chance and give you those two weeks. No big deal. Forget about it. However, there's just one little problem with that. You remember where my boys picked you up last night? A roach motel on the New Jersey boarder."

Caesar knelt down on one knee and stared at Tommy, his face inches from his victim. "Now that breaks my heart, Tommy. Don't tell me you were planning on running away and hiding from us so you wouldn't have to pay me at all, now were you?"

Caesar's scare tactics did the trick. Tommy was sweating bullets and any words coming out of his mouth were reduced to incoherent babbling.

"Responsibility and Trust are two things I take seriously, Tommy." Caesar spoke, his ice cold voice growing more sinister with each word. "Hammerhead has enough on his plate dealing with the big problems. Kingpin, Silver Mane, Spider-Man. It stresses the poor guy out, so while he takes care of the big problems, he trusts me to take care of the little problems and make sure things keep running smoothly. It's just like my business deal with you. I want to make a little money on the side while I work with Hammerhead, so I apply my rules of responsibility and trust to other people. People ask me for some financial assistance, I trust them with a little bit of money, and it's their responsibility to pay it back when I say I want it back. Normally it works just fine. They pay me back just like they promise. We both walk away happy. Everyone wins. Pleasure doing business."

He paused to build tension. "Then there's irresponsible people like you, Tommy. Bottom Feeders! You take advantage of my generosity, you borrow a lot of money and then you betray my trust by trying to run away without paying. That makes me angry, Tommy, and when I get angry, people get hurt."

"Please... God... Please..." Tommy whimpered.

"Oh stop crying and take your punishment, Tommy." Caesar groaned. "You brought this on yourself, so God can't help you, but you'll get to talk to him in person right now."

Caesar stood up and snapped his fingers. "Jimmy! Put him down like a mad dog!"

"NO WAIT! PLEASE! I'LL PAY!" Tommy screamed. He closed his eyes and waited for the bullet to finally end this nightmare.

But the sound of the gunshot never came. Instead, what he heard next was a nasty slamming noise mixed with the shocked cry of one of the thugs.

Tommy opened his eyes to see who or what had delayed his execution, and there on the ground was Jimmy, and sitting over him, like a leopard pouncing on a gazelle was a muscular humanoid shape dressed in black.

"OH SHIT! IT'S SPIDER-MAN!" Caesar cried out in shock. The absolute worst case scenario. "SHOOT HIM!"

Caesar and the three remaining thugs drew their weapons and fired, only for the figure to do something Spider-Man would never have done. The black clad humanoid picked up the unconscious Jimmy and tossed him directly into the line of fire, where his chest became riddled with bullets. He was dead before he landed on top of Caesar.

"Holy shit, Spider-Man just killed Jimmy!" cried one of the thugs in horror. It was then that Tommy finally got a good look at his savior, but he soon wish he never looked at her at all. It was clear this individual was not Spider-Man, or even a man at all. While this newcomer's body was decorated in muscle, the curves and visible outline of breasts indicated it was definitely a woman underneath that costume, but with the way the mouth of this person, if he could call her a person, was moving, Tommy began to doubt if that really was a costume. The white tear drop eyes and the spider symbol on her chest gave her a resemblance to a black suited female counterpart of Spider-Man, but that's where the similarities ended. Spider-Man didn't have claws as long as hers, and he certainly didn't sport a mouth full of teeth the size of steak knives.

Tommy's heart stopped cold when he realized those teeth were real as a long wet tongue dangled down from the doppelganger's mouth like a red snake exiting a cave, wiggling around in the air in search of prey.

Tommy wasn't sure who he was in more danger from now, the thugs, or this demoness who crashed the party. For all he knew, she wasn't here to save him. She could just be there for a midnight snack, and unless he got out of there fast, he could end up becoming her second course.

The terrified civilian bolted, taking advantage of the monster's distraction to rush to the building's exit and out into the streets, screaming like a frightened monkey.

Lucky for Tommy, the monster didn't even take much notice of him. She had both of her bleach white eyes focused on the three remaining thugs. She licked her lips with sadistic delight.

"Now that's just rude. You boys were throwing a party, and you didn't even bother to invite us? That hurts our feelings!"

Nothing even remotely human could sound the way this monstrous woman was speaking. Savage and alluring at the same time, Caesar imagined that kind of voice could only come from something like a dragon from one of those medieval fantasy movies he liked to watch when he was a kid, and there was no doubt this creature was equally deadly.

"Jesus Christ, it's a chick, and she's got teeth!" one of the thugs spoke in a mixture of fear and disgust.

"I don't care if she has three tits!" Caesar roared as he forced Jimmy's corpse off his body and stood back up. "Shoot the bitch! Shoot her!"

The two remaining thugs didn't hesitate and unloaded all their rounds on the monster, but this proved useless. Like a jungle cat, she rushed towards them on all fours until she was in striking distance. She pounced again, catching both of their throats in each of her enormous clawed hands. Ignoring their muffled cries, Caesar watched in pure terror as the creature slammed one thug into the hard floor, guaranteeing a fatal skull fracture. She kept the last one in her hand, squeezing his neck so hard, Caesar almost thought the poor man's head would pop like a balloon. The demon dropped the doomed lackey before that could happen, his face a tombstone grey, locked in a state of fear.

That did it for Caesar. He had to get out of here. Bullets didn't even seem to work on whatever the hell this thing was. He tried to run, but he didn't get very far.

The monster fired two strands of webs, hitting a bullseye and wrapping around the mobster's legs. Like a fisherman reeling in a captured tuna, the creature pulled Caesar back towards her, ignoring his screams. Flipping him over and webbing his torso so he was completely immobilized, she gazed upon her defeated foe like a great white shark waiting for a wounded seal to bleed to death.

The female abomination picked up Caesar's cocooned body and slammed him against the wall, her gaping maw twisting into a sadistic grin.

"Not so high and mighty now when the roles are reversed, now are you, Little Man?" the creature spoke, teasing him as if playing with her food.

"We know your kind, Caesar! If that is your real name! You have spent your entire life abusing your position on top of the food chain. You enjoy being a predator, but tonight you are the prey! Look at us! A lovely lady out for a night time stroll and what do we find? We find a giant cockroach of a man basking in his own sadism. You're too worthless to pick on someone your own size, so you go after those who are completely helpless."

By now the black she devil was close enough to Caesar that he could smell the foul breath of her gaping maw. All she had to do was move an inch closer and then close her mouth, and his face would turn to mulch.

"You have no idea how much that pisses us off. It's more than enough to give a girl an appetite!"

"P-P-Please... Please just let me go!" Caesar wailed. "I'll do anything! I swear!"

"Anything, you say?" said the creature. "That poor young male begged you the same thing and you completely ignored him. You were going to kill him no matter how much he begged for mercy, so why should we show you any mercy? What makes your life more valuable than his, or better yet, what makes your life have any form of value at all?"

"What the hell are you?" Caesar wheezed.

The creature grinned, her lips and teeth forming a Glasgow smile

"Wouldn't you like to know? Why spoil the fun of keeping you guessing?"

Then to Caesar's surprise, the creature cut the webs with her claws and threw his now free body to the ground. He made one last attempt to reach for his discarded gun, but she kicked it away before he could get to it.

"Playing with you and your lap dogs was a bit too easy, rather disappointing in our opinion." she said.

"So we shall give you a fighting chance. Run, Run, Run, as fast as you can, or we will eat you just like a Gingerbread man."

The mobster was too confused to move. Was she serious? Would she actually let him go? He looked around and saw three other guns next to the bodies of Jimmy and his two other henchmen. He could dive for one of them if he was quick enough. Make one last attempt at making her pay for killing his men, but one look from the creature made his blood run cold. It was as if she knew exactly what he was thinking, and she was silently telling him that was the worst idea he could possibly make.

"Remember, little human? You have no idea who or what we are, so let that little question burn into your mind and give you nightmares for the rest of your life. If you so much as think about causing harm to the innocent people of this cesspool you call a city, then no matter where you go, no matter where you run, and no matter where you try to hide, we will find you and we will tear you apart piece by piece! Eyes, Lungs, Liver, Pancreas! So many snacks, and so little time! Do we have an understanding, you worthless piece of rotten carrion?"

It was only now Caesar realized he was actually trembling. "Yes..." He squeaked. He dare not say more out of fear it would trigger an aggressive response.

"Good boy! Now since you've been such a cooperative little morsel, we shall give you a running start! You can pick anywhere you want to run. The hospital to treat your injuries, the police to turn yourself in and find safety behind bars, or perhaps to whatever hole you crawled out of in the first place. For the record, we don't care where you go! You have until the count of five to get out of our sight."

 _"_ One... Two..."

 _"_ You... You won't get away with this!" Caesar made one final attempt at bravery.

Bad idea.

"Two and a Half!" the monster teased in order to remind her prey that he was playing with fire. _  
_

"You'll pay for this, you bitch!" Caesar yelled through tear soaked eyes. "When the boss hears about this, you'll pay!"

"Three Four Five! Ready or not, here we come!"

The monster lunged at Caesar and he realized he should have ran when she started counting. He didn't waste any more time. He turned around and broke into a panicked dash that would have made Usain Bolt jealous, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him. For a moment, he thought he could make it. Salvation in the form of the building's exit was in sight, only for his pursuer to backflip into the air and jump in front of him.

"On second thought!"

Caesar's shoes slid to a grinding halt and he stopped inches away from the creature's Amazonian body. He didn't have time to change direction or even scream, and the last thing he saw was the creature's mouth opening wide like the jaws of a crocodile. The monster sank its teeth into Caesar's neck, piercing his jugular vein and crushing his wind pipe. Death was instantaneous.

The monster let go of the dead criminal and watched his body fall to the ground in a limp heap. As if waking up from a dream, she surveyed the area, staring at the other corpses. Her bleach white eyes widened as she realized what she had just done, and then her slime covered face peeled backwards, revealing the stunned expression of Gwen Stacy underneath.

"Did we... Did we really do that? We... Oh God, did we really..." Gwen Stacy covered her mouth as she felt the urge to vomit. She remembered all of it clear as day. She had that man's throat in her teeth. She tasted his blood, and she liked it.

Gwen covered her mouth again. It took every ounce of restraint to force everything back down and not throw up.

 _"You humans and your weak stomachs."_ The symbiote teased its partner. " _I don't see why you're upset now, Gwen? We followed your rules. We didn't eat him."_

"But we... Oh God, did we really have to do... that? Why did we like that so much!" Her pleasure centers were going haywire, and it spooked her beyond all reason.

 _"It's alright dear host._ " the symbiote whispered words of comfort like a mother soothing her frightened daughter. _"The first time is always the most difficult, but you'll get used to it over time. We would never have been able to go all out like that unless we both wanted the same thing. You knew these people deserved to die, and so we gave them what they deserved."_

Gwen's eyes hardened into sharp stones, and her shock faded away, replaced with her hatred of people like Caesar and these vermin. She was tempted to spit on them.

"Yes. They got exactly what they deserved."

 _"Perhaps it would make things easier next time if you picture the Goblin's face when you fight."_ Her other half suggested.

A wicked smile sported Gwen's flawless face. That would definitely make things easier. Why stop with the Goblin anyway? There were so many people in this city just like Norman, people with souls rotten to the core who deserved a special place in hell, and she would be doing the world a favor sending them there. Spider-Man never had the guts to do what needed to be done to truly clean this rotten city, so she would do it for him. Peter was blind, but she would make him see.

 _"Rest easy, Gwen Stacy. No longer shall you feel helpless and frightened. We'll keep each other safe. We'll keep each other close. We are one, Gwen Stacy, like twin sisters sharing one body. Nothing shall ever harm Gwen Stacy again, not while her symbiote is around, and the symbiote shall never be alone again with Gwen Stacy for company and shelter."_

The mask enveloped her again, and Gwen felt her long snake like tongue lick her lips. She hugged herself, caressing her body, feeling the warmth of her only friend in the world, the only friend who truly understood her.

 _"We are the same. Two lonely souls who have suffered at the hands of the same person. We were brought together to complete each other and give birth to someone else entirely. There is no more Gwen Stacy and no more Symbiote. All that remains is this new beautiful creature, stronger than the two of us could ever be by ourselves."_

The bonded creature hugged herself tighter, feeling comfort and empowerment by the warmth of the slime covered costume engulfing her human half underneath. Any form of doubt was now gone. This is who she was now. This is who she was meant to be.

 _"That one thug was correct though. Who are we, really? We do need a name after all if we want to truly make an impact in this city. Gwen Stacy and Symbiote? Those are who we were when we are separated, but now that we are bonded, we have become something else, something more, someone who can do things we could never do when we are apart. Tell me, Gwen Stacy. Who are we?"_

She pondered her other half's question. "Our name... Our name... Who are we?" she hissed, human and symbiote voices merging into the alluring alien speech.

Her eyes darted towards an object in the otherwise empty building. A mirror, warped and broken, but still clear enough to see her reflection. The human half of the creature could now see her new face with her own eyes. She walked closer, doubting if this was really her, but it was. There was nothing else in her line of sight but her reflection. Mesmerized and entranced by her appearance, she gasped in wonder. She was so beautiful.

"It's funny." said the new vigilante of New York. "Perhaps Gwen Stacy did die when she fell off that bridge. We feel nothing like her anymore. We can't be. The Gwen Stacy of old would never think what we think, feel what we feel, desire what we desire. The symbiote is right. Someone else was born from our union, someone with a new purpose."

Her new name came to her instantaneously, and she spoke to her reflection in a thunderous and triumphant speech, a declaration of who she truly was and a vow of what this new Goddess of Revenge needed to do to protect the two halves that made her whole.

"We know who we are and we know what we want. We want revenge against those who hurt us. We are the darkness born from Spider-Man's failures. We are the poison born from Norman Osborn's greatest sins, a poison that will kill him slowly and in the most agonizing way possible. It started with the Green Goblin, but it will not end with the Goblin. This city is full of people just like him, people who want to hurt. Spider-Man is too soft to treat this infestation. He uses traps and prisons to deal with these creatures, but traps and prisons don't stop an infestation of rats. If you want to remove vermin from your home forever, you unleash a poison that kills them all one by one. We are that poison. We are the cure that will cleanse this city!"

 ** _"WE ARE VENOM!"_**

* * *

 **Authors Notes:**

 **Well that was quite dark, wasn't it?**

 **Caesar should be lucky the symbiote wasn't bonded to Eddy Brock this time around, otherwise Venom would have been even more violent.**

 **Don't worry. I'm not going to write excessive levels of Gore. That's not my thing. The violence in Venom's fights won't go too far, but at the same time, Venom does kill the bad guys, so I am going to have to find a middle ground in my action scenes that will highlight Venom's style of crime fighting without crossing any lines.**

 **I know it may seem early for Gwen to get into her new role all at once, but I figured the trauma of finding out her boyfriend was Spider-Man would serve as more than enough life shattering motivation to lash out and go crazy on the first criminals she got to fight.**

 **So what did you think of the chapter? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Whatever your opinion may be, feel free to leave a review and let me know!**

 **Until Next Time! This is Nox Descious Signing Out!**


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